Haunted
by Dixxy Mouri
Summary: The murdered students from Class 78 are discovering that death isn't the end - they're still trapped in the school, haunting its hallways while watching the rest of the "game" play out. But dying isn't their own problem - not everyone has shown up for their post-mortem, and they may not be as alone in the school as they originally thought they were. . .
1. Toy Soldiers

Haunted

By Dixxy Mouri

Prologue: Toy Soldiers

Two flickering monitors were displaying the live feed from the classrooms on the first floor where the last remnants of Class 78 were being held. The screens were small and blurry and didn't display color, but the picture was clear enough to see who was who and not an inch of either room was out of their line of sight. Supposedly, this was going to be one of the greatest victories secured by the organization known as Super High School Level Despair – so much of Japan's hope rested on the shoulders of these fourteen students, but Junko Enoshima was going to crush that hope into beautiful, terrifying despair.

Mukuro Ikusaba was watching them, trying to drum up an emotion about what she was witnessing. Her classmates had been temporarily detained in classrooms, the doors locked shut while Junko made the final preparations to begin the School Life of Mutual Killing. They'd given up trying to break the doors down for the moment, both groups taking relatively similar actions by gathering in circles in the middle of their respective rooms as they awaited their fates.

_I'm sorry, everyone_, she thought.

Junko yawned, running the last tests on the first of dozens of Monokuma robots. Of course they needed to make sure they were all in good working order, Mukuro supposed, seeing as they would be the primary avatar through with Junko would be interacting with their friends. A third screen flicked on – it depicted Headmaster Jin Kirigiri, tied up and blindfolded inside of a rocket with the bear's head sitting on top of the nose. Junko laughed merrily. "T-minus five minutes until rocket launch," she cheered in a sing-song voice.

"Rocket launch?" asked Mukuro. _I didn't know anything about a rocket launch._

"Yeah. We're launching Headmaster Kirigiri into the sky!" Junko cheered giddily. She grinned. "We have to get rid of him if we're going to be able to get to our classmates – as long as he's around there's hope for them to escape, even if it's into our world of despair, and we can't have that, now can we?"

"But what about-"

Junko turned on her with wild eyes as she began to yell. "SHUT UP! I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP ABOUT THAT!" Mukuro swallowed – normally Junko loved being miserable, but this wasn't despair, this was anger, and they were very, very different. Her little sister took a deep breath, composed herself, and continued on as if nothing had incited an incident between the twins at all. "And this is what I've decided on. He's going to go for a little trip into outer space, but the rocket's re-entry will incinerate him." She pressed a button. "And of course we get to watch our dear classmates watch the whole thing. See? They're seeing what's on Screen #3."

Mukuro looked back at the monitor and saw the others crowding around the monitors she'd set up in the classrooms for this purpose. There was no audio, but she could see shock and horror on all of their faces. A few of them were yelling or pointing at the screen. Strangely, or perhaps not strangely, Kyouko Kirigiri seemed to be reacting the least of all.

_She's in shock or doesn't know what's happening,_ Mukuro thought. Then again, none of them probably did – all they were looking at was the image on that third monitor. Sure, they all knew _something_ was up by now, and enough of her sister's precious despair had set in that they probably expected the worst, but they still didn't know what.

Mukuro continued to watch. A countdown appeared on the third monitor.

She watched them begin to react. The two couples (Sayaka Maizano and Leon Kuwata, and Aoi Asahina and Sakura Oogami) held hands and exchanged worried looks. Touko Fukawa passed out – Byakuya Togami caught her and made some sort of order, probably for water or for someone to help him with her. Taeko Yasuhiro had covered her eyes, and Yasuhiro Hagakure was frantically yelling at his crystal ball. Hifumi Yamada was frozen in fear. Mondo Oowada was getting visibly angry and possibly on the verge of hitting something, while Chihiro Fujisaki was trying to calm him down, but to no avail. Kiyotaka Ishimaru was trying to establish order in his room. Makoto Naegi had his hands over his mouth.

Kirigiri was still a blank slate.

"And five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . ."

The third monitor showed Monokuma press a button, and the rocket sealed itself. It blasted off, lifting higher and higher into the sky, were it was gone for several minutes. The students were starting to panic even more than they had before – where had their headmaster gone? What was that rocket, anyways?

Kirigiri was still unflinching.

Junko grabbed the Monokuma mike. "Check it out, you bastards! The rocket's on its way back!"

The rocket crashed back down, and the doors opened.

Headmaster Kirigiri's skeleton fell out in pieces.

This was what finally broke the younger Kirigiri. She began to scream and cry, rushing towards the monitor in her room. The six students in the room with her (Naegi, Kuwata, Maizono, Oowada, Fujisaki, and Ishimaru) surrounded her, embracing their frantic friend. Those in the other classroom (except for Fukawa, who was still passed out, and Togami, who was still trying to care for her) rushed to the wall separating them and began banging on it.

Junko cackled and clapped, spinning around in her chair, and Mukuro turned to her. This was, perhaps, the most satisfied she'd seen her sister, but it still didn't feel . . . right. It was a little horrifying. "What was that for?" Mukuro asked. "They're not going to remember any of this anyways – why did you need to do that?"

"Why, my dear sister, has seeing our friends distress given you a taste of despair?"

While she was probably right, Mukuro still didn't think _this_ was necessary. "Again – why?"

"Because they _aren't_ going to remember and this was our last chance to watch them give a shit about the headmaster," said Junko. "Besides, if we're going to instill false hope in them by destroying their memories, they need to hit rock bottom first." Junko stopped spinning and crossed her legs as she grabbed the Monokuma microphone. "And we do that by killing the one person they think is going to protect them."

"You think they're in despair?" Mukuro asked.

"No, this isn't despair. Not _true_ despair. Oh sure they're upset, especially our little detective girl, but we can do soooo much better," she said. "But first, let's fuck with them a little bit, shall we? We're not going to get a chance to mess with them like this after their brains get scrambled, so we need to do this while we can." She flipped a switch on the console, and audio from the two rooms spilled into the control room.

"_Papa . . . PAPA!_"

"_Oh God, Kyouko, Headmaster . . ."_

_ "What the fuck?! WHAT THE FUCK DID WE JUST WATCH!?"_

Junko grinned. "Hey bastards, did you enjoy the show?"

"_Who is that!? Who are you?"_

_ "Two of our friends are missing – what did you do with Junko and Mukuro?"_

Junko's face lit up and she looked at her sister with a deranged grin. Mukuro tried to smile back.

"Oh, I'll tell you all right!" Junko flipped a switch on the microphone. Her gaze darkened, and for a moment Mukuro was a little frightened of her. "We've been watching you all the whole time from the super duper top secret Super High School Level Despair Monokuma Control Room!" She cackled in the microphone, spinning in her chair.

"_JUNKO!?"_

Junko snorted. "You idiots couldn't figure out Super High School Level Despair had infested your precious little academy? _Morons!_" Mukuro winced as a selection of very choice words were lobbied at her sister, primarily from Mondo and Leon, but a few of their classmates surprised her (seriously, where did Chihiro pick up that language?). "Now, now, the fun is just beginning!"

"_Fun? We just watched you kill Master Kyouko Kirigiri's father! That's not fun!"_

"Oh, ho, ho, but aren't you guys excited to be on television?" Junko said.

"_Television? What the hell are you talking about?"_

"You're all television stars now! It's a new reality television show!"

"_Mukuro hasn't said anything yet – maybe she's there with her sister."_

"_MUKURO! MUKURO, CAN YOU HEAR ME!? ARE YOU OKAY?"_

"You dumbasses, she helped me set this all up," said Junko. She snorted. "And don't interrupt me, I'm not done talking about your television show. You don't even know the _title_ yet. You should probably know the _title_." She threw her head back, leaned back in her chair, and grinned wickedly. "I'm calling 'School Like of Mutual Killing'! Isn't that a great title?"

"_What the . . . what the fuck does that mean?!"_

"It's a game show. See, the prize is leaving the school."

"_We don't want to leave the school – that was the point of the last year!"_

_ "I don't know, this place isn't that great right now. . ."_

Junko shook her head. "No, no, no, the prize is pretty sweet, and the game is pretty simple! Check this out. See, you all get to spend the rest of your lives in here, trapped in the school . . . unless you kill one of your fellow classmates. Then if you get away with it, everyone else dies and you get to graduate!"

"_I stand corrected – staying in here is an AWESOME idea."_

_ "You're never going to get us to do that! We're not going to kill our friends!"_

"Oh, oh you haven't heard the best part. See, I'm going to arrange for your precious memories of the last two years to be erased," said Junko. "You're going to forget you were ever friends or lovers, and you're going to forget that you're locked in this school for your own protection. You're going to forget about everything that's going on outside."

"_. . . wait, what?"_

Junko chuckled. "The last thing I've arranged for all – well, most of you to remember, is the first step you took on campus as a student here. Back when the world was all rainbows and sunshine or whatever the hell you bastards miss so much. So you're going to wake up in a school with complete strangers, locked up tight with no way to get out."

_"If we don't remember we're friends . . . and we don't know the world's ended . . ."_

Mukuro watched as despair spread throughout her classmates. She felt a pit in her stomach.

_ "GET ME OUT OF HERE!"_

_ "I STAND CORRECTED AGAIN! THIS PLACE IS DEFINITELY NOT AWESOME!"_

_ "MUKURO! DO SOMETHING!"_

Mukuro was surprised to see, one by one, her classmates turn to the cameras in their room. "_Mukuro, come on! You can't let Junko do this! Help us!" _That was Naegi, looking up at the camera in desperation. Of course he was going to be the one to lead their last ditch effort to get out of this. While it was true he probably didn't have anything reminiscent of the Super High School Level Good Luck that brought him into the school, he had something else that was perhaps even more valuable.

"_Remember the good times we had! Please, Mukuro! You can't let Junko get away with this! We're your friends! Don't do this!" _She stared in horror at the screens. Why did they all have faith in her? What did they expect her to do, especially against Junko? They all knew she couldn't say no to Junko, no matter how miserable it made her! Why were they all asking for her help? What could she do?

Junko wheeled her chair over to her. "Mukuro, you don't want to disappoint me, do you?"

Mukuro hung her head. No, she didn't.

"_MUKURO!_"

* * *

Two hours later, her classmates were receiving the procedure. There was a lot of kicking and fighting and yelling and screaming as they were dragged off one by one. Special measures were taken for some of them that they expected would be trouble (namely Oowada and Oogami, though they were very careful with Fukawa), though there some unpleasant surprises. Ishimaru put up a hell of a fight ("Oh yeah . . . didn't Captain Eyebrows do kendo or some stupid shit?" Junko has asked while watching the fight play out), and Fujisaki showed no fear in using teeth. Asahina and Kuwata both managed to get away and led the other members of Super High School Level Despair on a little chase around the building for a bit, but they were eventually detained. The worst was Yasuhiro, who'd actually managed to gouge someone's eye out with that finger armor of hers.

Junko looked over at her recording equipment. "Hmm. I didn't think she had it in her."

"They're all fighting for their lives," said Mukuro. "This is self-preservation."

"And they're going to need that in spades once the game begins."

"Excuse me?"

"Self-preservation is the name of the game. How much are you willing to sacrifice to save your own hide? How much blood are you willing to get on your hands for a breath of fresh air?" Junko smirked. "Kill or be killed, but not without a risk of its own. We should take some bets on who we think is going to cave first . . . provided they don't _get_ killed before they get the chance. I wasn't going to say her, but now I'm not so sure. She's feistier than I thought."

"Well who were you thinking?"

"Well Corndog Head's got some anger issues but the two people who are best able to keep in check aren't going to remember how. If anything I'm hoping he kills one or both of them," said Junko. Mukuro swallowed. "Oh come on now – we're going to be outlining everyone's actual relationships to the audience! If we're lucky we'll have one or both of the lovebird pairs off each other, yeah?"

"That's awful," said Mukuro.

"That's the point, idiot," said Junko.

Mukuro grimaced and returned her gaze to the screen displaying her friends as their memories were erased. All she could do was watch now. Watch as the only friends she'd ever had were taken away from her. She swallowed, gripping her chair as she watched. It was halfway done for most of them by now – Kirigiri was going to be undergoing additional erasure, as Junko was concerned was a Super High School Detective might be capable of if allowed to keep those memories as well.

_That's it, huh? The last two years are gone. Just like that. _

Mukuro was interrupted by Junko dropping the wig into her lap. _Oh. Right. My part of the plan._ Her sister had explained that she wanted someone to be watching their classmates more closely, but having a soldier in the mix might not be the best option. "I'd start getting ready – it takes a long time for me to do my makeup and you've got to get changed as well."

"Okay, but . . ." Mukuro studied the wig for another moment before looking up at her sister. "I have a question. My instructions are a little vague beyond that scene with Monokuma after the first murder . . . why is that?" she asked. Junko looked at her with a serious expression, and Mukuro wondered what was going to follow. Certainly she'd been given her script – she knew what to say, she knew a trap door was going to open up beneath her and drop her into an underground chamber . . . but aside from that she was lost. All it saw was "take away their hope and spread despair". How was she supposed to do that?

"We won't know until the first murder happens. I can't make further plans until I know exactly who's left and who's not," she said flatly. "I mean, we really don't know. At all. We can guess who might be the first to crack and who won't last long but in the end . . . we don't know. Especially once they get access to poison – it could allow one of the little ones to take out someone much, much bigger than they are, you know?"

That seemed like an acceptable answer. "Oh. Okay," said Mukuro.

* * *

For the first several days, things were . . . as calm as could be expected. No one suspected they were surrounded by their dearest friends. No one suspected that Junko Enoshima was actually someone else, although someone asked why she looked different from her modeling pictures, and Mukuro had to quickly come up with an excuse involving photoshop.

No one remembered Mukuro Ikusaba existed.

Which, Mukuro supposed, was all according to plan. She felt pretty miserable about the whole thing – this was the despair that Junko loved so much, but all it made Mukuro feel was sick to her stomach. She didn't like people calling her "Enoshima-san" or "Junko-chan" or whatever else they thought they should be calling her. She missed the sound of her own name.

Which was strange, really. Soldiers didn't have much of an identity in Fenrir – they weren't supposed to. You followed orders unless you gained rank, at which point you were the one giving the orders. You didn't wear anything that stood out. You didn't wear makeup or jewelry (though some jewelry, Mukuro reasoned, would be very dangerous on the battlefield). Your hair was kept short, your nails neatly trimmed. There was no identity.

Mukuro didn't have one until Hope's Peak Academy came calling for her and her sister. She wasn't just a soldier anymore – she was Mukuro Ikusaba, Super High School Level Soldier. Her classmates recognized her as a soldier, but they didn't treat her like one – they treated her as a friend, as a person, as someone unique and different and not just another gear in the clockwork of her unit.

After they'd been given the "motivational DVDs" Junko had prepared for them, Mukuro returned to her room. They were cruel device. Just enough information had been pieced together to let them know "something bad" had happened to their loved ones, and that much was the truth. What Junko had left out, of course, was that they were all dead from a worldwide crisis and everyone was better off staying inside and away from the chaos. They didn't have any loved ones to return to – everyone else's loved ones had been dead for close a year and the Oogami family dojo had finally been overtaken after a year of fending off the despair. The only possible survivor was Naegi's little sister, but a girl out there all by herself for this long? She was most likely long dead by now.

Maizono seemed to have the strongest reaction to the DVD, which showed her the aftermath of the tragedy that killed the other members of her pop idol group. That had been . . . interesting. Certainly everyone had been horrified, but her having the biggest freakout? Mukuro didn't think someone so cheerful and bubbly would be the first to fall into despair.

Not that it mattered. There was no guarantee it was going to drive the little pop idol to kill.

Mukuro collapsed into the chair at her desk and ripped off her wig, tossing it towards the bed and leaned forward, studying her reflection. Even now, with her real hair, she still didn't look quite like herself. All the makeup wasn't her – the fake eyelashes, the lipstick, the blush and eyeshadow and foundation and fake nails . . . none of it was really her, but it was all Junko. It was exactly what they wanted for the plan, but left Mukuro feeling like an empty shell.

This wasn't what she had pictured despair would feel like.

* * *

Maizono's body was discovered the following morning when she didn't show up for breakfast. After someone realized there were only fifteen of them in the cafeteria, Naegi panicked and ran from the room to check on her. Minutes later, his blood curdling scream could be heard and everyone headed in the direction of the scream to see what had happened.

There she was, lifeless in the shower room with a knife protruding from her stomach.

No one reacted well, and maybe only half of them heard Monokuma cheerfully announce that there would be a class trial. Kuwata spoke up, asking what a class trial was, and it was all Mukuro needed to piece together was had happened. She'd seen those eyes before, the eyes of someone who'd taken a life. It was mixed with fear and uncertainty, but she was convinced.

Leon Kuwata had murdered Sayaka Maizono.

This was EXACTLY how Junko had wanted things to play out. She didn't just want the students to kill each other, oh no – she wanted them to kill the ones they were the closest to. She wanted to see Fujisaki slip poison into the water of an unsuspecting Oowada and Ishimaru. She wanted to see Oogami strangle a helpless, pleading Asahina. She wanted to see Genocider Syo finally give in to her desire to drain the blood of Togami.

Kuwata stabbing Maizono was _precisely _the kind of murder Junko had salivated over.

Now they just needed to see if he was going to get away with it.

* * *

For the first time in her life, Mukuro didn't see it coming.

For the last time in her life, Mukuro didn't see it coming.

It happened so quickly, she didn't even have time to process the pain. All she could see was the blood and the spears protruding from her body. She lifted her hand, covered in her own blood . . . so much blood. "Why . . ."

Several of the spears disappeared, and Mukuro's body dropped to the floor.

But Mukuro . . . didn't. She remained standing in place as the spear disappeared back to where they'd come from, the other students screaming around her, screaming for the like of Junko Enoshima. Mukuro, still shaking, looking down to see her impaled body lying in an ever-expanding pool of blood. "But . . . but . . ."

She lifted her hands, horrified to see they were transparent. She turned them over and examined herself – her whole body was like that, partially see through like a reflection in a window. She stepped back – she felt "off", like she was too light, and something was missing from her being. The sensation of air in her lungs. The taste of saliva in her mouth. The rush of blood through her veins.

The beating of her heart.

Mukuro Ikusaba was dead, nothing but a ghost haunting the halls of Hope's Peak Academy.

* * *

Ding dang ding dong! Author's announcements!

EDIT: Added in a couple of new scenes and expanded on some of the existing scenes.

Hello Dangan Ronpa fandom! Even after all these years as a fanfic author (I'm Tumblr old, okay?) I still feel the need to introduce myself when I start writing for a new fandom. My name is Dixxy Mouri and as I've already stated, I'm not new to the fanfiction game – check my profile if you want more details

So a few things I wanted to get out of the way:

Thing One: Yeah, I'm using song titles as a chapter naming scheme. You'll see a mix of stuff because my interests get pretty eclectic. I'll have some sort of write up for each song in the Author's Announcements section, especially since one song title could reference multiple songs. Most chapters are going to have several working titles as I try to figure out what song will work best, a.k.a. I really don't want to have to use "In the End" by Linkin Park but right now it's the most fitting song I've found for one chapter and that bugs the shit out of me since NOTHING says "crappy mid-2005 AMV" like that song.

Thing Two: Chihiro's gender. I have seen some of the arguments erupt over this and it can get ugly. So I talked it over with a friend of mind and the consensus we came to was female pronouns since that was what she preferred in the game, so I'll be treating Chihiro as a transwoman (meaning male at birth but prefers to identify as female). If you don't agree with this interpretation I ask you to respectfully refrain from flaming the comments, reviews, or any of my online inboxes.

Thing Three: Naming consistency. This is PROBABLY the thing that will be the most inconsistent as I don't have everyone's name usage down yet so please bear with me if it's a little shaky at first, but note that certain events may cause a character to begin referring to others differently on purpose.

Song Choice: Originally it was going to be "High Hopes" by Pink Floud, but I wasn't quite sure it fit and came across "Toy Soldiers" by Martika in my iTunes playlist, though "High Hopes" may very well show up later if I find a use for it. Anyways, the prologue has a little bit of Mukuro questioning Junko and whether or not she really wants to hurt her classmates.

Mukuro's interesting to me because I think her character is still shrouded in a kind of mystery. While she certainly isn't an UNWILLING participant in everything that happened, I'm not sold that she did it all out of lust for despair like Junko did, but more out of a desire to please her sister as well as having spent years being put down, bullied, and abused.

This prologue is subject to change – I currently don't have a beta reader for this story so I'm sort of putting this out there to test the waters a little. Hope you all enjoyed it and please let me know what you thought :D

Dixxy


	2. Remember the Time

Haunting the Halls

By Dixxy Mouri

Chapter One: Remember the Time

It had been a stupid, terrible idea.

The two of them were standing there in Naegi's shower stall, close enough to feel each other's breath on their necks. Sayaka's eyes were wide, choking on a cry that had died in the back of her throat. It was over. Her stupid, terrible plan was over. She'd been stabbed in the gut, and even if someone found her before she died, there was no way they'd be able to get help for her in time. She was going to die, and she realized she had no one to thank but herself.

Kuwata backed away from her, his eyes wide in shock. "I . . . I . . ."

Sayaka stared at him, unsure of what to think of him. She settled on pity. This hadn't been his idea, after all. If she hadn't invited him here, he probably would have just stayed in his room, and maybe this wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't be dying in a shower room with a broken wrist and a kitchen knife sticking out of her stomach. Kuwata wouldn't have panicked and killed her. Monokuma wouldn't have gotten his way. Their eyes met once more before he fled the bathroom.

She looked out into the room. Naegi's room.

_Naegi . . ._

_Naegi's going to get blamed for this._

Sayaka decided she needed to do something as her vision began to get blurry. Naegi didn't deserve what was going to happen to him once she was found. He'd been trying to do right by her, even if she had been using him. She didn't want to die like that, leaving him high and dry to take the blame. Sayaka was fading quickly, but she wasn't going to let Naegi take the fall for Leon. She'd been wrong to stray down this path, and this was all she could do to make things right. She ran her hand over her wound – her fingers were coated with warm, sticky blood. It would have to do.

She scrawled her killer's name on the wall behind her. _There._

Her vision was getting worse. She was losing a lot of blood. She could barely make out shapes anymore as she coughed up blood. Sayaka was too weak to move anymore. _I'm sorry everyone . . . I'm sorry I couldn't get out of here to save you . . . I love you all . . . and I'm so sorry . . ._

_ . . . I'm sorry . . ._

Sayaka slumped to the floor and closed her eyes for the last time . . .

. . . and promptly opened them again.

Sayaka was confused. She wasn't in pain anymore; in fact, she felt fine. She stumbled to her feet, and it slowly began to dawn on her that something felt horribly wrong. Her body didn't hurt, but it didn't feel right. She looked down at her hands and froze.

They were transparent.

Sayaka stood there in shock as she realized what was going on. She spun around and screamed at the sight before her. At her feet, leaning against the wall of Naegi's shower, was her corpse, blood still oozing from her stomach. Sayaka fell on her behind and scrambled out into the bedroom, still screaming.

Sayaka Maizono was dead.

Was this the afterlife? Having to look at your own dead body? She grabbed her head and began to shake it. "No, no, no! This isn't real, this isn't real!" she wailed, feeling something that almost felt like tears streaming down her cheeks. This all had to be a nightmare! Everything was some sort of horrible bad dream! Monokuma and this horrible game and the love of her life hurting her and-

_. . . the . . . love of my life?_

Sayaka heard a grunting noise and turned to see Kuwata . . . no, _Leon_ trying to clean up the room. She studied him for a moment. _Love of my life? Where did that come from?_ They'd only met a few days ago when they'd woken up in the school and Monokuma told them they couldn't leave unless they killed someone, so why did she think . . .

. . . no, no that was . . . wrong.

Sayaka recalled a different first meeting with the others . . . two years earlier. At first the only person she wanted to spend time with was Naegi – she didn't know anyone else at all, but they at least knew each other by sight from their old middle school, and to say that their classmates weren't getting along was an understatement.

_Why did I forget all of this?! Why did __**any**__ of us forget all of this!?_

It made as much sense as it didn't. Everyone's memories had been erased . . . somehow. They'd forgotten why they had sealed themselves inside of the school, and Monokuma was using that to get them to kill each other. _If we don't remember that we're supposed to stay here . . . and we don't know there's nothing for us outside . . . and all that we have is each other . . ._

If she'd still had a stomach, it would have been turning.

Sayaka got to her feet and woozily walked over to where Leon was running a lint roller over the carpet in Naegi's room. What was she going to do now? "Leon?" she asked. No answer. Of course not, she was a ghost. She bent over and tried to touch him – her hand passed right through him. Of course it did – she was a ghost. Of course he couldn't see her or hear her or any of that.

_I'm dead, after all._

She remembered Leon being one of the more outgoing students when they all first met . . . their first real meeting . . . unless he was around her, then he'd get really quiet, and she assumed that he didn't like her. He clearly had some sort of punk rock affinity and she had earned her spot in the school with idol pop music – of course he wouldn't like her, she was the antithesis of punk rock. It wasn't until a few weeks later, in music class, that he dedicated a song to her and she realized he'd simply been too nervous around her to say anything. He'd ended the song by asking her out, gotten detention for the gesture, and then Sayaka purposely got herself detention for defending him.

It was around that time that things began to fall in place for everyone, and by the end of that first month they were all finally friends . . . and in some cases, a little more than friends. She and Leon weren't the only ones who'd started dating, and before long she found herself on a double date with Sakura and Aoi.

Sayaka remembered the first time they'd kissed – she'd been shy about it, rejecting all of his previous attempts, and it wasn't until they'd been caught in the rain on their way home from a movie that it had happened. Leon loved big romantic gestures, and something about that afternoon, despite getting thoroughly soaked through by the sudden downpour, had been perfect.

She remembered the first time he met her father – Dad hadn't paid much attention to him and while he didn't disapprove, he didn't seem to care much either way. Things had gone better with the other members of her band – they'd fussed over him with a variety of opinions ranging from "aw, he's so cute" and "you guys are going to make such a great couple" and "I will cut you with a rusty spoon if you make her cry".

She remembered Leon introducing her to the other players on his baseball team. They'd all been very nice, if a bit rowdy. They'd had pizza in the team's meeting room. Sayaka knew Leon hadn't ever really liked baseball, but it was clear he loved his teammates and she suspected he'd kept at it for so long for their sake.

And then the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happened.

Their homeroom had been one of the only classes that survived. There had been lots of screaming from outside, and the teacher on duty ordered everyone under their desks before she blocked off the door with a chair. As the screams got louder, Sakura and Mondo shoved a bookcase in front of the door. Everyone was shuddering in fear, although the wrestler and the biker were trying to keep strong faces for everyone else – she was positive those closest to them could see the truth, however. Sayaka remembered trembling in the back corner with Leon (who was holding her tightly and trying to reassure her they were going to make it), Naegi, Celes, and Yamada.

Hours later, Headmaster Kirigiri found them – he'd started to cry, thankful to find more survivors, but completely fell to pieces when he saw his daughter was among the living. They'd found out that the rest of Class 78 and most of the 77th and 76th classes had also been wiped out, save a handful from each, and the _entire_ study body from the reserve school had been destroyed. No one believed him at first – as bad as things sounded outside, that was completely crazy. There was no way that many students had been killed in the incident. The reserve class was around two thousand students – surely they couldn't all be dead?

But it was true. The sixteen from their homeroom and about twenty-five combined from the other classes. All of the survivors were rounded up in the gymnasium, the teachers searched the building, and then the school was put on temporary lockdown while the situation outside was assessed. The headmaster told them he was going to do his best to find out whether or not their familes were safe and let them know once he know.

Someone had asked what he meant, and they learned that despair was spreading not only throughout their school, but throughout the rest of the country, and there was a very real danger that the rest of the world would be infected soon enough. Had this happened in a different time things could have been isolated, but the speed at which information traveled across the internet and through cell phones may have doomed the world. Forum posts. Text messages. Videos and images were flooding the air around them, pushing this message of ultimate despair on the world around them.

That was the nature of this monster that was slowly destroying all they knew.

One by one, the students of Class 78 learned they had been orphaned by a series of tragic events. Sayaka and Leon had been the first to find out. Headmaster Kirigiri paged them to his office, and for a moment the two were nervous he was going to accuse them of making out in the music room (. . . again, but this time they were _sure_ that they hadn't been caught and besides, the last time had been before the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident and didn't everyone have bigger problems?). They held hands, giving each other foreboding looks as they entered the office.

But the headmaster gave them no accusatory looks, and the environment was almost welcoming. There was a platter of cookies on his desk, a teapot, and empty teacups and saucers. He rose from his desk and invited them to sit down, which they did, unsure of what was going on. At the very least it didn't seem like they were in trouble, but something seemed very wrong about this meeting.

Headmaster Kirigiri explained that he had begun efforts to find out how everyone's loved ones had been doing in the crisis outside, in the event a student wished to return home to be with their loved ones. Sayaka remembered getting a sick to her stomach feeling and Kuwata squeezing her hand. He said that, normally, he would break the news to a student on their own, but knew that they were dating and thought that it would be good for both of them to find out together.

Sayaka's band and her father were gone.

Kuwata's baseball team and his parents were gone.

Sayaka hadn't been sure how to react. They were both at a loss for words as the headmaster told them he was going to do everything in his power to protect them from harm. He told them about the shelter plan, and how he was going to provide all of the students with a safe place to stay while they waited out the crisis outside.

It only got worse from there. Stories began to spread about how everyone else's loved ones had been affected. It was a nightmare no one could wake up from. After Chihiro, the fourth to find out, had been paged to the headmaster's office, everyone began to dread hearing their name on the intercom. Asahina had refused to go until Sakura said she would go with her. Yamada burst out crying the moment he heard his name, already knowing it was bad news. Togami had been cocky, believing his family to be invincible, but he completely broke down for several days once he learned that not only was his entire family gone but also _everyone they associated with_ – someone out there didn't want to leave a trace of the Togami group alive, and now only he remained. Celes had been in denial, insisting everything was "fine", even when people were not asking her what had happened, until she collapsed in the middle of the cafeteria, sobbing uncontrollably.

Just to name a few.

And things outside were getting worse. Someone always had a TV on or a RSS feed on a computer. People wearing masks that bored the face of what Sayaka now recognized as Monokuma were marching through the streets – it was very likely that these people had been responsible for most of the murders of their loved ones. National landmarks all across the globe were being torn down or defaced to bear the visage of that evil bear. Death and destruction everywhere, with only a few strongholds remaining as the days went by.

Hope's Peak Academy was converted into a shelter a month after the initial incident.

A shelter they might never leave.

That was right . . . it had been about a year since she or any of her classmates had been outside. The headmaster had allowed them all over hour outside before they sealed the front door. They'd all stuck together, too afraid to venture very far out, and it seemed unlikely the headmaster would have allowed it anyways. Not that it mattered; most of them were orphaned by the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident so where would they go?

The last thing any of them had done outside was a big group hug, promising each other they'd find a way to get through this and they would always be there for each other. Then they'd all slowly filed into the school, and watched at the massive steel door sealed them inside. Several of them burst out crying when the last sliver of sunlight was gone (herself included), and those who'd kept their composure tried to do what they could for the others.

No one talked much that first week, though there was a lot of crying as they mourned . . . everything. Parents. Siblings. Aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and teachers and classmates, even people they didn't really know but saw every day anyways – the old man who sold takoyaki two blocks to the west of their campus, the old woman who paid them with packs of gum if they did yard work for her, the gay couple who passed the school on their morning jog, the stray cat who was always trying to follow them into the school . . . all of them were gone, and with them the world they knew. Even if the world wasn't perfect, and it wasn't, it was all that any of them had ever known and now it was gone, replaced by chaos and destruction. Some students put on a strong face, but had complete breakdowns when they thought they were alone or with someone they were particularly close to.

There were still classes at first – ostensibly it was to ensure that they were all still getting an education for when the crisis passed and however much time they spent in the school wouldn't be wasted. In reality, everyone knew it was a distraction from what was going on, a feeble attempt to try and keep their hopes up and give them something resembling a normal routine. It was a school, after all, and they were students, but many of the teachers had been killed in the incident and the handful who were left weren't able to teach a wide range of subjects. They tried to wing it to give them variety, but it was no use – their math teacher didn't know history very well, and the chemistry teacher was no substitute for the music teacher.

Over time it got harder and harder to concentrate and focus. About half of them stopped coming to classes, and those who still went were getting glassy eyed, their minds elsewhere; their dead parents, families, and friends; the life goals they wanted to accomplish that simply didn't exist anymore; and the sorry state of the world crumbling outside of the school walls. The headmaster finally cancelled classes about two months in, but it was an almost meaningless gesture; really, classes had been over since day one.

As the months passed, the outside world didn't look like it was getting any better, and they all began to wonder if they really were going to grow old and die in the school after all. Most of their dreams were dead anyways. At best, Sakura's dojo, last they heard, had avoided most of the despair by virtue of being somewhat isolated, and Naegi's little sister was _missing_ – having the _possibility_ that _maybe_ someone you loved was still alive was something almost none of them had.

The realization that this situation really _wasn't_ going to end prompted Sayaka and Leon to take a risk and spend the night together, and not just by means of falling asleep with a late running movie or passing out in the library after studying until three in the morning (which happened to everyone from time to time, especially Kiyotaka - it wasn't unusual for Mondo to be carrying a sleeping prefect back to his dorm room, shaking his head and clucking his tongue).

It had been roughly seven months into the shelter arrangement. They'd been cooking something together in the kitchen (well, Sayaka was cooking and Leon was "helping", and that was a GENEROUS term at best) when Leon cut himself on a knife ("It's a butter knife, it's not that sharp!" "Dull edges don't cut as well and are more likely to slip!") and the two went into the infirmary to find bandages.

Sayaka had found the nurse's stash of condoms during their search.

Technically it was against school rules, but the headmaster and most of the staff were not comprised of ostriches who stuck their heads in the sand when it came to teenagers and certain natural urges. It had been presented to the students as a sort of "you shouldn't do this, but if you decide to do it anyways, go to the nurse's office to protect yourself" thing, and sure enough plenty of students took advantage. She and Leon hadn't done anything like that yet, but there they were – still well within their expiration dates and more than bountiful, waiting to be used.

They'd stared at them for several minutes before closing the drawer and trying to forget they'd found them. They found the bandages, cleaned the cut, and returned to the kitchen in silence. They were both thinking about it, and they both _knew_ the other was thinking about it, and they finally discussed it a few days later in the privacy of Sayaka's dorm. Yes, there were still risks, and Sayaka getting pregnant in the event of a condom breaking would have been a disaster, but there was also something that it could provide that their current living arrangement couldn't:

A sense of normalcy.

It was _normal_ for teenagers to sneak around to fool around with each other. Everything else about how they'd lived the past several months had been anything but that. Their parents were gone. The world was effectively over. There weren't that many people left in their lives anymore, and most of them had lost everyone and everything in their lives as well.

Leon collected a small stash of them, which they split between the two of them – half for her room, and half for his room, just in case this was going to be a regular "thing". They'd only ended up doing it once, in her room, and the most comforting part of it was falling asleep afterwards. That entire evening had made them forget where they were and what had happened outside, and it was probably the only good night's sleep Sayaka had gotten in months. Leon, too, for that matter.

Sometime around a year into this arrangement, things started to get blurry. She saw imagines of Kirigiri screaming for her father, a classroom covered in blood, Chihiro screaming as someone dragged her from a classroom . . . those memories didn't make any sense and were kind of a jumbled mess. Whatever had erased her memories must have permanently damaged the memories surrounding that event.

It didn't change what had just happened. She'd tried to kill the man she loved to escape from the only safe place she knew anymore. Monokuma . . . whoever or whatever he was . . . had set up this horrible game to get them to destroy what was left of their lives. Who was next? Were Aoi and Sakura going to hurt each other? What about Mondo, Ishimaru, and Chihiro? Would Hagakure – sweet, stupid Hagakure – sink to the point of hurting someone?

Even though no one would hear her, Sayaka kept screaming.

* * *

Sayaka followed Leon around for the next hour as he tried to clean up the scene of the crime and destroy the evidence. He didn't look happy about it the whole time, and she kept apologizing to him. She'd been the one who started it, after all. She'd been so desperate to make sure her band was okay, that they were fine . . .

. . . if only she'd been able to remember they'd already been dead for a whole year.

Leon tried to go to bed after that, but she could tell he wasn't sleeping. Come to think of it, she didn't feel very tired, either, and she wondered if ghosts were able to sleep or not. She sat on the edge of his bed for a few moments, apologizing to him again and again, and then decided to go back to her room - her real room. She needed to apologize to Naegi, too.

She tried to open the door to Leon's bedroom – she could feel the knob, but couldn't turn it. She cursed. Right. She was a ghost. She tried to slam her fist on the door in frustration, but discovered it passed right through, and she fell flailing into the hallway. She paused for a moment, stunned, but it really didn't hurt – she was more surprised than anything else.

Sayaka stood and tried the door again. She could pass through closed doors but not open doorknobs. Odd. Could she walk through walls, too? She pressed her hand against a wall – solid. Sayaka cocked her head to the side. That was bizarre. She could walk through a closed door, but not a wall? "Maybe I should . . ."  
Sayaka headed back into Naegi's room for some "experiments".

Solid objects came in two flavors – doors, which she could pass through, and everything else, which she could not. Even something as simple as a pillow may as well have been solid stone bolted to the ground. So, just like when she was alive, she still needed to walk around things. _Well, that stinks. Unless . . . can I fly? Aren't ghosts supposed to be able to fly?_

Sayaka climbed on top of Naegi's bed and launched herself into the middle of the room. She crashed face first into the floor. She pushed herself up and shook her head – again, at least she couldn't feel pain anymore, but it seemed as if flying around the school was out of the question. What else could she do?

_Maybe there's a way for me to communicate with the living . . ._

Actually, that wasn't a bad idea. But the question was who did she try to contact?

There was only one answer.

_Hagakure. Definitely Hagakure._

Even if Hagakure was asleep, Sayaka reasoned that he was the most likely to believe he was actually receiving messages from beyond the grave and, maybe, the most likely to be sensitive to something like that to begin with. Getting the others to _believe_ Hagakure might be a challenge, especially since none of them remembered him, but he still seemed like the best candidate.

Sayaka hurried to Hagakure's room and went inside. It was dark, and the fortune teller had passed out face first on his bed. He was snoring and mumbling in his sleep, something about aliens and hamburgers. Sayaka sat on the foot of his bed. Now, what to do, what to do. _I guess I start with just talking to him – maybe he can "hear" me. _"Hagakure, can you hear me?"

". . . s'my burger . . ."

Nope. Next step. "HAGAKURE WAKE UP! WAKE UP, WAKE UP, _WAKE __**UP!**_"

There was a pause, and for a moment Sayaka got excited.

". . . you owe me a burger . . ."

Sayaka growled in frustration. She wondered if there was a pen and paper around, but determined she wouldn't be able to lift the pen. Okay, maybe she could leave him a message in the mirror or something. She got off the bed and hurried to his dresser. She blew onto the mirror – nothing. Whatever it was she was doing that "felt" like breathing didn't affect the mirror, so she tried to scrawl a message onto it as it was.

_HAGAKURE – I AM DEAD. LEON KILLED ME. – SAYAKA_

She couldn't see the message at all and wasn't sure anything was left behind at all. Maybe she needed to try the bathroom mirror instead – maybe the message would show up after he took a shower and the mirror was all fogged up? She walked over to his shower room, looked inside, and if she still had a working stomach she MIGHT have vomited. Hagakure did not keep a clean shower room at all – there were used towels and bits of dirty underwear everywhere.

Sayaka stood horrified in the doorway. She shook her head. No, no this was more important that stinky boy underwear. Grimacing and bracing for the worse, she tip toed around Hagakure's discarded things, scrawled something on the mirror, and tip toed back out, vowing to never step foot in there ever again.

_Okay, now what?_

Feeling defeated, Sayaka left Hagakure's room. Perhaps she would try again later.

* * *

Hours passed. Sayaka wandered the halls of the first floor, having made two distressing discoveries. One, the bars blocking off the second floor stair wells counted as objects she couldn't pass through. Two, and even worse, she still couldn't leave the school. Not that she was sure she wanted to – how much better would her situation really be if she was haunting the outside world instead of inside the school?

Sayaka returned to Naegi's room. The morning announcement would be soon – it would only be a matter of time before someone figured out she wasn't at breakfast, and he came back here to check on her. She took a seat on the bed and waited, gripping her knees. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to do this, but . . .

_Ding dang ding dong!_

_ "Good morning, you bastards! Time to wake up!"_

Sayaka swallowed. Her throat and mouth were dry.

Minutes passed. Minute after minute passed.

Sayaka was almost ready to give up when she heard Naegi's voice calling for her. She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, anything to him to apologize . . . but the minute he walked into the room, she began to sob uncontrollably. He wouldn't be able to hear her. He was going to see her body. And then . . . she didn't know what was going to happen.

* * *

The next . . . hour or so was a blur. The reality of it all was too much for her. She was barely aware of more people entering the room, and hearing Monokuma make some sort of announcement about the discovery of a "corpse". That made her cry even harder – that's all she was now, just a corpse, a dead body.

Sayaka was alone and scared . . . and dead. Even if there had been someone who was able to see her and hear her, she wouldn't have been able to respond. She was completely inconsolable, trying to figure out where it had all gone to hell. Why did she forget two whole years of her life? Where had that horrible Monokuma come from and why was he doing this to her and her friends?

It wasn't until a bunch of her classmates were back in the room, talking about some sort of "investigation", that Sayaka started to wonder what was going on. Strangely, Leon was among them. _Investigation? But, what does that mean? There's been a murder, and Monokuma said that if you killed someone you got to leave . . . so what's Leon doing here? Not that there's anything for him outside, but technically he did what Monokuma wanted him to do. Why didn't he get to go outside?_

_ And . . . what are they talking about . . . Class Trial?_

Sayaka wasn't able to gather much, but apparently her classmates were being forced to investigate her murder to try and figure out who'd killed her. Leon hadn't said anything, which seemed odd. Shouldn't he have volunteered that information if it meant . . . "going home"? Additionally, Junko wasn't with the other living students.

A quick trip to them gym answered her question.

There was a body lying face first on the floor. Mondo had covered it with his jacket.

_Junko . . . Junko-chan? _Sayaka collapsed to her knees, staring at the corpse in horror. Was Junko really dead? But then what could have killed her? The other students didn't seem to be investigating her death, so what could have possibly happened? _At this rate everyone's going to end up dead!_ She held back more tears, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

_No. No, I can't just keep doing nothing but cry! I have to do something!_

Sayaka took a moment to gather her thoughts. "If Junko died . . . JUNKO! JUNKO, CAN YOU HEAR ME!?" _If I'm a ghost, maybe she's a ghost, too!_ "JUNKO! JUNKO!" Her cries remained unanswered, and she hung her head. _Maybe she's not a ghost . . . or maybe she's not hanging around the gym anymore._ At least that was something she could do – look for Junko.

Getting to her feet and continuing to call for the model, Sayaka began to search for the ghost of Junko Enoshima. She checked everywhere she could, even the boy's bathroom (it wasn't as exciting as she'd imagined it would be – it looked almost identical to the girl's bathroom). Not in the cafeteria, not in the gym, not in the kitchen or the convenience store, not by the sealed off entrance, not even in the storage closet. Nothing. Not a sign of her. She stamped her feet in frustration. _Well, maybe Junko isn't a ghost after all. That's . . . disappointing_, she thought. _Poor Mukuro, now her sister-_

Sayaka's jaw dropped. _Oh my God. Mukuro! Where the hell is Mukuro!?_

That was right. There were sixteen students in their class – everyone who'd been in the gym, plus Junko's sister, Mukuro Ikusaba, the Super High School Level Soldier. But there'd been no sign of her. Well, _that _made things even worse than they already were. Now someone was missing and no one knew about about?! Sayaka wasn't sure what to do now. There was no telling what had happened to the other twin. She might not even be in the school, or maybe she was trapped on one of the upper levels.

As far as the living students were concerned, she didn't exist.

Sayaka hung her head. She was still hopelessly alone.

After checking all of the dorm rooms one last time, Sayaka passed by the stairwell leading to the second floor of the dormitory. She paused, wondering why it had been closed off. Fuzzy memories of screaming and crying greeted her – she held her head and backed away. She looked up the stairs, wondering if something had happened up there.

_I don't get it – if dying restored the memories I lost, why are some of them still missing?_ Sayaka gripped one of the bars. Those blurry memories must have had something to do with what caused her memories – and everyone else's, for that matter – to vanish. Maybe whatever had taken her memories had messed up the memories surrounding that event so badly they were never going to come back.

_Ding dang ding dong!_

_ "All right, you bastards, it's time for the class trial!"_

Sayaka crossed her arms. What was the deal with this class trial anyways?

* * *

Sayaka decided she didn't like the class trials. At all.

Apparently, killing a fellow student didn't automatically initiate "graduation" – you also needed to avoid being found out in a trial. That explained the investigation. Even worse, however, was Monokuma reminding everyone (and telling her for the first time) that if they got it _wrong_, everyone else was going to die. And if they got it right . . .

_Oh God, what have I done?_

Her actions had either killed Leon, or killed everyone else.

Sayaka watched the debate from the side of the court, shaking in horror and guilt. This was her fault. This was HER fault. Even if she hadn't killed Leon in Naegi's room, even if she was now the first victim, there would be blood on her hands soon enough. All that was left to determine now was how much blood.

Kirigiri helped prove Naegi's innocence.

Well, that was a slight relief. That was one innocent cleared. But it didn't change that everyone else was under suspiscion, and so far no one had pieced together Leon was her killer. She felt so conflicted about it. She didn't want to see him get hurt. She didn't want to see everyone else get hurt, either. Maybe if someone broke into the school and rescued them; sure, Leon would be in trouble, but considering the circumstances he would probably be let off easy.

Assuming there was even a court system – a _real_ court – left to try him.

Everyone pieced together that she'd tried to kill her murderer.

Sayaka grimaced. Well, they weren't _wrong_, but now everyone knew what she'd tried to do and that felt incredibly uncomfortable. Now they all probably hated her, and she couldn't blame them. For what she'd tried to do, for what she'd set in motion, she probably deserved that much. At least one of them wasn't leaving the school alive because of her.

And then Naegi figured out her dying message.

Sayaka hadn't been thinking too clearly in her final moments, but she hadn't written his name in Japanese at all, and worse, it was upside-down because of her perspective at the time. Everyone thought it was a number because the "N" hadn't been fully connected, and, well, yeah, it sort of did look like 11037. But once they realized it wasn't a number, that it was the name of her killer . . .

. . . she'd done it after all. She'd killed Leon.

Sayaka watched in horror as Leon went on the defensive, but it was no use. Her dying message, the one that she'd left for this exact purpose, had all but put the final nail in his coffin. Kirigiri and Naegi were able to piece everything together, and it lined up perfectly with what she'd watched Leon do the night before.

Leon's face showed up on some sort of slot machine that the stupid bear had set up.

She should have been angry with the way he tried to explain himself. He tried to call it self defense (and Sayaka was torn on that point – even if she'd retreated, she'd opened a can of worms neither of them would be able to close – he had to have been wondering if she was going to try again or call him out on the non-fatal wounds she'd received). And when Monokuma said he was about to be punished, he was terrified.

Sayaka hadn't just killed him – she'd _broken_ him.

What happened next should have been adorable. A stuffed teddy bear was hitting a big red button with a hammer that chimed very cutely when it was pressed. It looked like something that might initiate a song on a children's program or the kind of thing you might see at a carnival, maybe something a mascot might do in a commercial. In any other situation, Sayaka would have found it darling.

But this button was the death toll for the man she loved.

A metal collar on a shot out from seemingly nowhere and closed itself around Leon's neck.

Sayaka screamed and he was yanked away. "_**LEON**_!"

* * *

DING DANG DING DONG! Author's Announcements!

EDIT: Welp, I fleshed out the chapter – there's new stuff in a lot of places, with the only section I really didn't go after being Sayaka's experimentation with what ghosts can and can't do. I wouldn't say anything is an obligatory, game changing edit but if you want to go over the chapter again, yeah, new material.

I'm hoping the long Author's Notes are done after this chapter -_-*

Ghost Rules: A lot of this chapter was outlining most of what the ghosts can and cannot do in this canon. Additional rules will come up as they gain relevance (such as ghosts interacting with each other).

Canon events/dialog from the games: A lot of what the living students did that was handled on-screen by the game or anime is going to be glossed over, with the most notable exception being the executions. Those are getting written out.

Posting schedule: I'm probably not going to have a set schedule, but I'd like to get chapters out roughly every 1-2 weeks. Sometimes it might be a shorter wait, other times it might be longer.

Things happening out of order: This is something that will happen from time to time. It won't be a constant presence, but you're eventually going to see that the dead students will have their own "mystery" to solve soon enough.

Rating change ( only): This might get bumped up to an "M" rating.

Series? Series!: This is actually setting up additional stories that are going to go in a VERY different direction.

Song choice: "Remember the Time" by Michael Jackson. Obviously this is going to be a recurring theme, as characters regain their memories upon death (which is going to be repetitive and a little unavoidable, so I'm going to try and have everyone remember different things to fill out some pre-despair backstory).

Thank you to everyone who left a review!

Dixxy


	3. Just Give Me a Reason

Haunted

By Dixxy Mouri

Chapter Two: Just Give Me a Reason

It was all happening so fast, Leon didn't have much time to process what was going on around him. The bear wasn't seriously going to kill him, right? He had no choice! Fucking Maizono had tried to kill him first, what was he supposed to do?! Let her kill him? Hell no! Any of them would have done the exact same thing!

_Right?_

Something clamped itself around his neck, and suddenly Leon was being dragged.

_Come on, come on, this isn't FAIR! I didn't have a CHOICE! SHE WAS GONNA KILL ME!_

Leon hit the ground, the collar dragging him down a long hallway. He tried to grip the ground beneath him – it was smooth and he shoes weren't giving him any traction to stop it. Worse still, the collar was choking him as it dragged him, and no matter how hard to tugged, it wouldn't budge. "SOMEBODY! ANYBODY! HELP ME!"

The collar pulled him into a room with lots of bright lights, and it took Leon a moment to recognize the motif on the walls. It looked like the inside of a baseball stadium. He felt his heart sink. _What the hell is this?!_ Leon was yanked to his feet and his body slammed into a pole – seconds later, thick iron bands bound him.

Leon didn't like _anything_ he saw. The remaining twelve students were watching him from behind some sort of chain link fence. The teddy bear from Hell was making them watch – he was an example, just like the model had been. He was showing them what would happen to the next one who did it. None of them looked happy to be there, but it was hard to say why. Did they pity him? Did they hate him?

But that wasn't what scared him the most. It was the pitching machine in front of him. He knew the device well, even if hadn't used one in years. Not since he was little and his dad took him to the batting cages – that was how they first learned he was good at baseball. But even without using one for years, he knew enough about them to realize he was in trouble. These machines were able to shoot balls at well over 100 kilometers per hour if you set them up for it – that was why it was so important to wear batting helmets in the cages. A hit on the head from one of these things or even a really good pitcher could kill. His heart began to pound in his chest, and he could feel sweat dripping down his brow.

Monokuma appeared in the cage, holding a baseball bat and wearing a little baseball uniform. This was all some kind of sick game to the evil bear, and he was having _fun_ at his expense. This wasn't an execution, this was a circus, and he was nothing but the clown in the center ring. And for what? For being forced to play a game none of them wanted to play?

The machine began to fire. Leon cried out with the first several hits – kidney, stomach, center of the chest. They hurt like hell. Sure he'd been hit by a wild pitch or two before, but never one after another like this, never from this close, never on purpose. He clenched his eyes shut, too scared to watch. He cried out with each hit, but as bruise after bruise crushed his flesh, it slowly dawned on him that the bear wasn't trying to kill him . . . right away.

This wasn't an execution – this was _torture_.

Suddenly, the pitching machine began to spin around him, and the baseballs started to pelt him like a horizontal downpour from all sides. He could feel his body being crushed and broken, he was bruised and bleeding and the pain was excruciating. But the balls weren't hitting his head. Every other inch of him was being beaten like a dusty rug, but not his skull.

Because a blow to the head might kill him or knock him out.

And that wouldn't be very fun for the teddy bear, now would it?

Leon kept screaming.

Finally, they connected with his face, his nose, his eyes, his neck . . .

Leon fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. The pain had stopped.

And he could hear crying next to him.

Leon turned his head in surprise. Sayaka Maizono was standing next to . . .

. . . _his body, still being pelted by baseballs._

That was why the pain had stopped. He was _dead_. Execution complete.

Sayaka was sobbing, hugging herself as she stood there, eyes clenched shut as she shuddered. Her body was transparent, but he could see it was clearly her. But why was she sobbing for him? He'd killed her – even if she'd given him no choice, she was sobbing . . . he'd made her cry . . . he'd made the girl of his dreams cry . . .

Leon paused. _ Wait, what? Girl of my . . ._

Memories began to flood his mind, like there'd been a dam keeping them in place but the thing had cracked and broken, and now his mind was awash with feelings and moments that had been hidden away from him, and he _remembered_. The expression on his face melted, and he felt himself close to tears as well. "S, Sayaka?" he asked.

Sayaka stopped crying for a second to look at him before falling to her knees to embrace him. They both tensed up for a moment – she was cold to the touch, and Leon guessed he was probably cold as well. But after that moment of hesitation, he pulled her close. Now he was crying, too. Even though she was cold, even though they were dead, he _knew_ this embrace.

"Sayaka . . . I'm so sorry, baby . . . I'm so sorry," he sobbed.

That was right. Sayaka was his girlfriend. They'd been together for almost two years now.

Leon had been a student at Hope's Peak Academy for two whole years. He'd been friends with everyone – they'd had classes together and study groups and day trips into the city to hang out or see a movie or . . . anything, really. They hadn't just gotten to the school a few days ago – hell, none of them had _left_ the school for a whole year now because of all the crazy shit going on outside. These people had been his entire world.

Sayaka had been the most important one. He remembered taking one look at her and suddenly finding himself a believer in love at first sight, and despite being so good with women otherwise, he couldn't find any words when he was around her. She made him nervous and he always clammed up around her, and she always looked at him funny. It didn't make any sense! He was smooth as silk with every girl he'd dated but around her he might as well have been . . . well, the obnoxious hall monitor or the creepy otaku. Leon struggled with figuring out how to approach her for the first two weeks of classes. At some point he started hanging out with Hagakure, thinking the older student might have some good advice about girls. Short answer? He didn't, but one night when Hagakure was _probably_ high as a kite he did give him one brilliant piece of advice. "She's like . . . like a singer, you know? You should . . . you should buy her a ukulele."

Okay, that plan was . . . not good (awful, really – what the hell would she have done with a ukulele?), but it gave Leon an idea. They had an assignment for music class – they needed to perform one song so their teacher could have a better gauge as to where everyone was – who could sing, who could play an instrument, whatever. Sayaka was kind of exempt, seeing as she got into the school with her music, but the rest of them needed to show their stuff. And since Leon wanted to be a musician going forward anyways, this was the perfect way to get her attention.

He was one of the last ones to go up, and while some of them were not difficult acts to follow (Chihiro and Fukawa both passed out before they could start, Hagakure sounded like a dying cat, and Yamada's rendition of some anime opening in full cosplay left _everyone_ feeling more than a little awkward), others were. Byakuya and Ishimaru were _both_ skilled pianists. Kirigiri, despite wearing gloves, could play the violin (seriously, how in the hell could she play the _fucking violin_ like that?). Neither Aoi nor Naegi were particularly good at anything musical but collaborated on a rhythm based piece with claps and cups that was actually pretty catchy. And of course Sayaka schooled everyone.

No one seemed to expect him to sing a love song – they'd all expected the Sex Pistols or something, he was sure – and no one expected him to change the last line of the song to ask the pop idol out on a date. Sayaka had blushed and someone (probably Mondo) wolf whistled from the back of the class. Their music teacher wasn't so amused and immediately gave him detention, yammering that it was out of line and the wrong thing to do or some other pointless rule bullshit (hell, even Ishimaru seemed to think it was pointless rule bullshit, and he was the _king_ of pointless rule bullshit).

Sayaka stood up to yell that she was speaking out of turn. Both of them were sent into the hall.

While they waited for class to finish, they actually had a conversation. Sayaka confessed she'd thought he didn't like her, and he confessed he was too nervous to talk to her and it was the only thing he could think of to break the ice (and, well, mission accomplished – he was able to talk to her after that). They agreed to catch a movie after their detention got out and just barely, barely made it back to the dorms before curfew. For a year, everything had been perfect.

Then the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happened. Headmaster Kirigiri outlined his plan to shelter them in the school, maybe for the rest of their lives. At first, no one agreed – what about their loved ones? Their parents? Their other friends? Did he really expect them to just abandon everyone they cared about like that? The headmaster conceded the point, but refused to let them leave without finding out if their parents were, indeed, all right.

Leon and Sayaka were the first to get word of what had happened to their loved ones. His parents had been killed by a lynch mob. Then the guys on his baseball team fell into despair and got into a massive fight with three or four other teams – there were no survivors. Sayaka found out about her band (Jin refused to give her details) and her dad (single gunshot wound to the head) around the same time, and the two of them holed themselves up in his room to cry, deciding to consent to the headmaster's plan before they fell asleep, holding each other and sobbing.

The rest of their class got bad news as the days rolled on. Only two of them got any semblance of "good" news. Naegi's little sister was currently listed as "missing" so there was a _chance_ she was still alive. Sakura's family was all right for the moment, but when they managed to get on the phone with her they encouraged her to go along with the headmaster's plan to keep her safe. Even for someone as strong as Sakura, it was too dangerous to try and get home.

And just like that, their world had shrunk to the size of the academy. They tried to have something resembling normalcy – once classes stopped, a "committee" consisting of Aoi, Kiyotaka, Naegi, and Chihiro put together an "activity schedule" to encourage them to do something fun every day to try and keep everyone's spirits up. Movie nights, "potluck" dinners, video games, whatever they could think of. Some days it worked, some days it didn't.

Leon hadn't wanted it to happen the way it did, but it was during that second year at the school he lost his virginity. Before the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident, Sayaka was simply not emotionally ready for it, which he respected, and she was concerned about her public image, which he had to agree with (he'd been visited by recruiters from all of the Japanese teams and some of the big American teams, including the Boston Red Sox and the Texas Rangers, as well as some lesser teams like the New York Yankees). So before everything went to shit, they decided to wait.

But there was one night several months after the school had been sealed off that they were both feeling particularly sad and lonely, and an opportunity had presented itself, and for that one night they managed to forget about the sorry state of the world and the sorry state of their lives. Leon was kind of glad that it was someone he cared about. Before Sayaka, before Hope's Peak, it was something he hadn't cared about – well, okay, he cared a LOT about the actually having sex part (he was not the only young man he knew who treated virginity like a disease that must be gotten rid of as soon as possible), but a younger Leon had been ambivalent about the "who". Now? After everything that had happened? It was meaningful. If they ever got out of this, if things outside really did get better one day, he decided he was going to marry her.

How could they have forgotten all of that? How could they have all forgotten they'd lost everyone, everything, and the world outside had been thrown into chaos? They didn't want to _leave_ the academy, much less murder the only people in their lives they had left, they were supposed to stay there and try to wait out the disaster.

Instead, three of them were dead. And Leon wasn't sure he'd be the last to die.

Sayaka didn't say anything, continuing to cling to him and cry. He closed his eyes. She must have been feeling guilty, too – without her memories, she must have been pretty desperate to get back to her band and her dad. She had no idea what she was really doing. No one did right now, and that was terrifying. He really hadn't known what he'd been doing, either.

The barrage of baseballs finally stopped. The classmates were being forced to look at his body – it was barely recognizable anymore it had been so badly beaten. His face was swollen, black and blue – Leon was pretty sure he saw a few of his teeth lying among the bloody baseballs. Everyone was watching in horror, no one saying a word.

Sayaka shuddered. "I'm so sorry . . ."

Leon held her tighter. "No, I should be the one who's sorry."

"But I-"

Naegi shouted something, and Leon and Sayaka turned to where the living students were gathered. The two ghosts (Leon . . . guessed that was what he was now) watched as the only 'normal' person among them, the Super High School Level Good Luck, said that he was going to carry their deaths – his, Sayaka's, and Junko's – with him forever, and he wasn't going to forgive . . . _Monokuma_.

Even after everything that had happened, even after both of them had tried to put the blame on Naegi for what happened . . . he didn't blame them. He wasn't angry, and he was distraught over their deaths, even if he didn't remember who they were – he didn't remember Sayaka had been his best friend, and he didn't remember all the times he'd hung out with Leon. _But . . . how? How can you forgive us?! After what we did to each other . . . what we tried to do to you? How can you forgive us like that? _

Because, in the end, it really was all that fucking teddy bear's fault.

* * *

The ride back up to the rest of the academy was silent. Leon and Sayaka had needed to move quickly to not miss it, since no one would be waiting for them to board the elevator, and neither of them wanted to be trapped in the nightmarish bowels of the school. It was better to be on the main floor of the academy – it was a slightly happier place to haunt.

Slightly.

"What are we gonna do?" she asked.

"We'll figure it out," he said. He closed his eyes and tried to think. Something, or rather someone, was missing. Memories of Junko being skewered in the middle of the gym flashed in his mind's eye, and he had to wonder where the pink haired fashionista had run off to. "I . . . gotta ask. Junko's dead, too. Did she just . . . not come to trial?"

Sayaka shook her head. "I, I really don't know," she said. "I wasn't in the gym when she died, and I haven't seen her ghost around so I'm not sure she . . . came back, or whatever this is. I didn't even know she was dead until I saw her body. I tried to look for her but . . . nothing. Until you died, I thought I was going to be all alone forever."

Leon swallowed. "Then what were you doing at my execution?"

"I . . . didn't want you to die alone. Even if you didn't know I was there."

Leon hugged her. ". . . thank you." It really was a nice gesture on her part. If he'd been there all alone after he'd died, he didn't know what he would have done. Probably gone crazy or something. But having Sayaka there meant that at least he wasn't alone. _Like she's been since last night. But she doesn't have to worry about that now . . . if she still wants me around._

The elevator jerked to a stop and the doors opened. Everyone filed out and headed to the dorms in silence. None of the living students wanted to talk, and truth be told everyone looked exhausted. Leon felt strangely awake – tired, maybe, but he didn't think he could sleep. He looked at Sayaka questioningly. "Have you slept since . . ."

"No, I haven't. I don't think we can," she said.

Seeing there was no point in going back to their dorm rooms, they settled on spending some time in the cafeteria. Really, it didn't matter where they went – they had all the privacy in the world since no one could hear them or see them anymore. But something about the cafeteria seemed the most appealing, and that was where they decided to wait out the night.

They went over as much as they could. Sayaka couldn't remember the events leading up to her memory being erased, and it occurred to Leon he couldn't either. The most he could recall was Mondo being led out of a classroom at gunpoint, and himself and Aoi running through the halls of the school trying to get away from someone or something. Which meant they had no idea who was really behind all this. It seemed unlikely that they were simply the victims of a magical talking teddy bear with a fetish for homicide so someone was behind it. But who?

Leon had a sudden epiphany. "Something's not right."

"Sweetie, that's a bit of an understatement," said Sayaka.

"No, no, we're missing someone," he said. "Mukuro wasn't in the gym with us."

Sayaka lowered her eyes. "I noticed . . . but I have no idea what happened to her. The teachers and the headmaster are all missing, too, but it seemed like whatever Monokuma wants, he's just interested in our class." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Considering what we just saw . . . I don't think they're alive."

Leon shuddered. "Headmaster Kirigiri promised to protect us. He definitely wouldn't want this."

"Yeah. That's why I think something happened to them, too. I can't remember what happened surrounding our memories being taken away, but . . . whatever happened to them must have happened during that time. I don't know if I want to remember, but it's driving me crazy that I can't. I just want to know they're all okay, but I don't think that's the case."

"And Mukuro's a soldier – she probably resisted or got away or . . . something," said Leon. He tried to come up with a reason for her absence, but there were too many possibilities – those blurry memories surrounding their memories being erased might have held the answer, but for now there was none. They couldn't even ask Junko if she knew what had happened to her sister, though a pit in his stomach suggested that Mukuro may have been the subject of the model's "motivational DVD".

Sayaka looked like she was ready to start crying again – unsure of what to do, considering hugging her would just make her cold, Leon took off his dress shirt and draped it over her shoulders. She looked at him and gave him a weak smile. "Thank you," she said, pulling it closer. Sayaka paused for a moment, then looked at the shirt. "Huh."

"Huh what?"

"I didn't think about it, but . . . I wonder . . ." Sayaka reached into her hair and pulled out one of her hairclips. She twirled it around in her fingers. "Would you look at that." She put the clip on the table. "It's almost like anything that we were wearing gets a 'ghost', too." Leon picked it up – unlike Sayaka, it wasn't cold, but it definitely felt like something. It had weight and texture to it, much like his shirt had.

"What good is this going to do us?"

"It might not do _us_ any good, but we need to learn as much as we can about what we can and can't do here. If there's a way for us to get a message back to the others, we need to do it. Let them know about what happened to their memories and that we're all friends and the world outside is dangerous. We're the only ones who know that."

Leon continued to stare at Sayaka's hair clip, but it gave him no answers.

* * *

Even though they couldn't sleep, they tried to return to their respective rooms. Leon found his completely stripped, as if no one had ever lived in there. He sat on his bed – the mattress didn't sink down from his weight – it was almost uncomfortable. He fell back – soft, but hard at the same time. It was almost like diving into the grass.

"Leon?"

Leon pushed himself up on his elbows. Sayaka had walked back in. "Hi," he said. He sat up and patted the spot on the bed next to him. She smiled weakly and took the seat. They sat in silence for several minutes, unsure of what to say to each other. It had been so easy in life – once they'd started dating, she was the easiest person in their class to talk to. He felt like her could tell her anything.

Now that the chaos of the trial had subsided . . . maybe she was rethinking things. After all, he _had_ been the one to kill her, memories erased or not. And she'd _tried_ to kill him. Even knowing that something had happened to them, even if they still couldn't place what . . . where did they go from there?

"We . . . really haven't talked about what happened last night," she said.

"Yeah," he said. "Just a lot of apologies."

"Does that mean we forgive each other?"

Leon wasn't sure. He still loved Sayaka, but her actions had wrought chaos upon himself and everyone else they knew and cared about. "I know Naegi's already forgiven us," he said. "He clearly thinks Monokuma . . . or whoever is pulling his strings . . . is at fault. And . . . he's right, you know. The bear has something to do with what happened to our memories, and he's the one who fed us those motives."

Sayaka looked like she was ready to cry. "Leon . . . can you forgive me?"

"Do you forgive me?"

They turned to face each other, and Leon grasped her hands – Sayaka squeezed back. They were still cold, and he wished her could feel the warmth of her skin again, but it seemed like this is what they would have to deal with for . . . well, maybe forever. Did he forgive her? Would she forgive him. He studied her eyes, trying to decide.

"Yes."

They said it in unison, and there was no lies leaving either of their lips. They let go of their hands – it wasn't bitter cold, but there was only so much of it they could take. Leon wished he could kiss her, but wasn't sure it would be comfortable for either of them. "We'll figure this out," he said quietly. "We'll figure out . . . what we're going to do."

Sayaka caught a tear that had been rolling down her cheek. "Okay."

* * *

The second floor of the school was opened up the next morning as a "reward" for finding Leon guilty. "I don't know how I feel about that," he said dryly. "Is that all my life was worth? Now everyone can explore the second floor?" Sayaka patted him on the shoulder, trying to be encouraging as they followed their classmates to the second floor.

Things didn't seem to be improving. Everyone was still trying to find a way out, or a way to communicate with the outside world. That wasn't going to happen - the only internet and phone access in the whole school was from Headmaster Kirigiri's bedroom, which was still inaccessible. Worse, Byakuya's callous attitude about the ordeal got Chihiro upset, and that started a fight with Mondo and Ishimaru.

Leon cringed. Before their memories were taken from them, Mondo, Ishimaru, and Chihiro had all been extremely close . . . though it hadn't always been that way. Back when they'd first gotten to the school, Mondo and Ishimaru more or less _immediately_ disliked each other, and Chihiro was intimidated by both of them, though for different reasons. As such, she avoided them like the plague and if the other two were near each other . . . well, it didn't always end pretty.

Around the same time Leon and Sayaka had started dating, physical education classes started. For the first couple of weeks they had been cancelled due to their gym teacher being sick and the school not providing a substitute, but when the teacher came back . . . things went horribly wrong for Chihiro. No one had any idea Chihiro wasn't biologically female. But their gym teacher started dropping some rather ugly language about her, absolutely _no one_ felt comfortable, but all of them were too afraid to say anything.

Except for Mondo and Ishimaru.

It was actually kind of amazing, sort of like watching one of those nature shows about packs of wild animals taking down their prey and watching them rip the flesh straight from the bone. Mondo got up in their teacher's face at first, which initially looked like it was going to end poorly for him, but Ishimaru backed him up with a subsection of the school's code of conduct as it applied to teachers respecting student privacy. It was in that moment something magical happened – despite hating each other, despite not being able to agree on anything even if it was just for the sake of pissing the other one off, they fell into a rhythm and starting double-teaming the offending party while Chihiro watched in dumbstruck awe. That rat bastard couldn't get a word in edgewise, and then all that was left of their gym teacher was the hollow shell of a man.

Headmaster Kirigiri fired him by the end of the school day.

That night during dinner, Leon and Sayaka spotted the three of them in the corner of the cafeteria. Chihiro was smiling, laughing at something Mondo and Ishimaru were talking about. They were an unlikely group to be sure, but there they were, acting as if eating together was the natural thing to do.

Before long those three were practically inseparable, and the relationship benefited all of them. Mondo's grades, which had been among the worst in their class, shot up with help from Ishimaru and Chihiro – oh, he wasn't suddenly at the top of the class or anything, but his D's were now B's. Ishimaru got better at interacting with other people and even picked up kendo, his first real hobby – he ended up being the only person in school who could last more than five minutes against the Super High School Level Swordsman. Chihiro found a lot of confidence she didn't have before and even though she was still shy and quiet and meek, she wasn't afraid to stand up for herself – about her gender, about what she thought was right or wrong, anything.

Seeing Mondo and Ishimaru fighting while Chihiro cried made him feel sick.

Watching all of their little sub groups splintered and broken made Leon feel sick. Celes was bossing Yamada around like she owned him. Byakuya seemed to think it was him versus everyone else. Something was especially wrong with Kyouko, but Leon couldn't place it. Sakura and Aoi had bonded fairly quickly, but the adoration they always had when looking at each other was gone. Touko was a mess. Hagakure was taken seriously be exactly no one. Naegi just looked worried and bothered, though that probably had something to do with Sayaka dying in his shower room.

Leon had thought Sayaka's murder and his execution would put a stop to the murders. How could any of their classmates want to die as horribly as he had, or as horribly as she did? But with the way everyone was getting along at the moment, with the way no one else seemed to have even a tiny bit of their memories intact, it seemed like it was only a matter of time.

* * *

A couple of days later, something happened between Ishimaru and Mondo.

Leon was vaguely aware they'd gotten into a pissing contest in the sauna, but suddenly the two were hanging off of each other and declaring to the world that they had entered some kind of bromance. They were calling each other "Kyoudai" again, and the pair of ghosts couldn't help but smile a little. Maybe, just maybe, on some level they were starting to remember their friendship.

And maybe, just maybe, it would become infectious. Let it spread like a disease among their classmates, let them all start to band together and stand in defiance against that accursed teddy bear and his stupid plan. Maybe it would jog their memories or trigger something, and when they all remembered the state of the outside world and how important they all were to each other . . .

_Ding dang ding dong!_

Monokuma called everyone to the gym for some sort of emergency announcement.

"What's he think he's doing now?" asked Sayaka.

Leon looked at her in worry. "Even if we can't do anything . . . we should probably check it out."

* * *

It was another motive.

Twelve envelopes had been tossed out to the classmates, each containing an embarrassing or dark secret none of them would have wanted shared. Leon and Sayaka stood in the middle, wondering if any of their classmates really had a secret worth killing over. "You don't think . . ." Leon started.

"It's . . . hard to say," said Sayaka. "I mean should we look at them?"

"What!?" Leon asked.

"We're ghosts – they wouldn't know, right?" she said.

Leon fidgeted uncomfortably where he stood. She had a solid point, but it was still an invasion of privacy. Dead or not, these people were all their friends. Even if they didn't remember, wouldn't it be wrong to violate that trust? He was about to stick to his guns on that, but then he caught a glimpse at Chihiro's secret.

_Chihiro is a boy who dresses up in girl's clothes._

"Hold on a second," said Leon, beckoning Sayaka closer. "Take a look at Chihiro's 'secret'."

"I thought you were against this," she said, scurrying over to the programmer. Sayaka gasped. "But that's . . . everyone in our class . . . we already know she was born a boy! And . . . and that's really insensitive! It doesn't matter – Chihiro's one of us girls!"

"No, Sayaka, _we_ know that, _they_ don't," said Leon. "We remember those two years – none of them do. So I'm willing to bed good money that we probably know the rest of these 'secrets' as well. Whoever's doing this to us wants the worst possible outcomes. We killed each other, and we were dating. What if someone kills someone over something all of us already know?"

Sayaka closed her eyes and clenched her fists.

* * *

It was a mixed bag of things they did and didn't know.

"Some of these . . . definitely aren't worth killing over," said Leon. He and Sayaka had gone over everyone's secrets. Some of them were relatively benign – Naegi apparently wet the bed through the fifth grade. Humiliating? Yes. Worth killing over? No, probably not. No one cared Hagakure was a brony – Leon had gotten him a Twilight Sparkle plushie for their last Christmas before the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident.

Chihiro was probably the person least like to kill someone in their group, but she had one of the bigger secrets. She also didn't remember what had happened when she was outted before their memories were taken away and had no idea that, in all likelihood, everyone would still be okay with it. Shocked, maybe, but overall okay with it. "This has to be stressing her out," said Sayaka. "I'm worried about her."

"Me, too," said Leon.

"Any other gross misstatements?"

"Evil Winnie the Pooh is trying to blame Daiya's death on Mondo."

Sayaka fumed. "But that wasn't his fault! Sue what he did was reckless, but it wasn't like he outright murdered him!" None of them had ever gotten the chance to meet the elder Oowada, but encounters with the Crazy Diamonds filled in some of the holes about just how much Daiya meant to Mondo. In short? The Oowadas did not have a good home life. Mrs. Oowada had gotten pregnant by an American businessman, which caused Mr. Oowada to walk out. Shortly after Mondo was born, their mother started to drink herself into a stupor – Daiya stepped in to take care of his new baby brother. He considered trying to get custody of his brother once he turned eighteen, but as "luck" would have it the woman drank herself to death and the courts took pity on him. Daiya wasn't just Mondo's big brother – he'd practically raised him, so it was no surprise that he would happily, readily, put himself between danger and his baby brother. Mondo didn't see it that way for a long time, though after Chihiro and Ishimaru convinced him to talk to the school guidance counselor about it he started to find acceptance.

"One guess for Touko's secret," Sayaka said dryly.

"Genocider Syo?" Leon responded.

Neither of them had even considered what might happen if Touko had an "incident" here and now, but it seemed like it might spell some sort of disaster. It had been hard enough to deal with when they were just normal students before the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happened. In here? There was no way to get away if she switched. Worse still, Byakuya was her "type", so there was, unfortunately, a good chance he'd end up dead by her hand. "Actually, it might be a good thing for Syo to come out," Sayaka said.

"How is a crazy serial killer going to help!?" Leon asked.

"Touko and Syo don't share memories – they share knowledge, but _not_ memories. It's possible that when Touko lost her memories, Syo didn't," said Sayaka. She lowered her eyes. "I mean, it's a long shot, because even if she does come out there's no guarantee she'd mention it, really, but it's possible that Syo could be the key to this."

"This does not make me feel any better about the safety of our friends."

"That's . . . not the thing I'm most worried about though," said Sayaka.

"How could Genocider Syo not be the worst thing? I mean, for Pete's sake Togami's secret is . . . okay I'll admit I didn't know that and it's kind of funny but not worth killing over. No one is going to be surprised to learn about the contents of Yamada's porn stash – he lives and breathes the otaku lifestyle, no _shit_ he has dirty doujinshi. I don't even like anime that much and _I_ had a few of those."

"Leon!"

Leon raised an eyebrow. "Don't look at me like you never looked up 'yaoi'."

"But that's . . . you . . . shut up!" Sayaka looked a little flustered, and if they weren't trying to figure out if it was possible to stop a murder from beyond the grave, he might have laughed. He knew the contents of her Internet browser history and she knew it. "Anyways, like I said, that isn't what I'm most concerned about. It's Sakura's secret I'm worried about."

"Sakura?" asked Leon. While Sakura was definitely the one most capable of killing someone, except for _maybe_ Touko, she was up there with Chihiro in terms of being among the least likely to do it. Sure she was big and imposing and made of muscle, but she was very honor bound and cool headed and disciplined. "What could possible drive Sakura, _Sakura_, of all people, to kill, even in this situation?"

Sayaka swallowed. "She's working as a mole for Monokuma."

That was someone he hadn't expected. "There's no way! _Sakura_?!"

"All it said was 'Sakura Oogami is a mole for Monokuma – upupupupupu.' I don't know what Monokuma expects her to do or if it was voluntary or not," said Sayaka. "It _is_ pretty suspiscious that she's the only one of us whose family wasn't killed in the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident," said Sayaka. "But . . . I can't see it! I just can't!"

"Maybe the mastermind got to her family . . . she had one of the DVDs, too."

Sayaka looked nervous. "That . . . that would make sense . . ."

"Should we, I don't know, follow her around and see what she does?" asked Leon.

"What's that going to accomplish?"

"I . . . I don't know," said Leon. "Like you said, maybe the two of us together can figure something out about getting through to the others, right? Convince her to not go along with the bear's evil plan . . . whatever that plan may be. I mean, this _isn't_ our Sakura. She couldn't . . . she can't . . . not even here . . . she just _can't . . ._"

"Leon . . . she isn't our Sakura. Not right now," said Sayaka.

Leon took her point. "So . . . what do we do? Follow her?"

Sayaka sighed. "I guess so . . ."

* * *

Nothing. Sakura hung out with Asahina, ate dinner (chicken, leafy green salad, protein shake, boiled potatoes), worked out, spilled one of her protein shakes in the girl's locker room, and went to bed. She wasn't sleeping peacefully (none of them were), but she wasn't sleeping like someone who was planning something rotten.

Leon and Sayaka left her room. Now they had another night on their hands with nothing to do.

Until they spotted Chihiro headed somewhere with a duffel bag.

"Huh? Where does Chihiro think she's going?" asked Sayaka. "It's the middle of the night."

Leon studied the bag from a distance. "Gym bag," he said.

"She's going to the gym at this hour?"

Leon shrugged. "That's kind of suspicious. Maybe she's planning something?"

"I can't see Chihiro trying to kill anyone – remember what happened in the library? She and Kiyotaka were ready to spill their secrets to keep everyone safe, and she got into that fight with Byakuya over trying to stick together," said Sayaka. "Even though she thinks she's responsible for your death . . . she's . . . she's our little Chihiro. She _can't_ be planning a murder."

"Sayaka . . . none of these people are acting the way they normally would," said Leon. "She's lost her memories. _Everyone_ is stressed out and scared. Everyone is worried about their parents and the friends – we're the only ones who know what's going on." He crossed his arms. "She misses her parents. Her friends. She doesn't _know_ that everyone in this school are the only friends she has left."

Sayaka frowned but nodded, and the two followed Chihiro up to the second floor.

They walked in silence until reaching the entrance to the locker rooms. Leon and Sayaka watched Chihiro pull out her ElectroID, sigh heavily, and let herself into the boy's locker room. "It's still kind of weird that she's going to the gym this time of night – it's got to be past one at this point, maybe close to two," said Sayaka. "Kind of a weird time to work out, wouldn't you say?"

"Well . . . actually, it makes perfect sense considering what we just saw," said Leon.

"I still don't understand how going to the gym at two o'clock in the morning makes sense."

Leon shook his head. "No, think about it this way. Chihiro went into the _boy's_ locker room – because she _can't_ use the girls room." He pointed to the twin machine guns hanging from the ceiling. "Monokuma probably had her ElectroID set to identify her as male, meaning that her ElectroID won't let her into the girl's locker room. If she tried, she'd be killed."

Sayaka's eyes widened. "And if we tried to work out during the day, she'd be spotted."

"Exactly," said Leon.

"So . . . Chihiro's really not doing anything all that suspicious after all," said Sayaka.

"Seems that way, yeah."

Leon watched as his girlfriend sighed with relief and leaned against the wall – despite not being tired enough to sleep, standing and walking was still tiring and it was good to rest every so often. "That's good. I was worried something else was going to happen," she said. She smiled. As long as all of the dying stops, I think I'll-"

Sayaka and Leon paused – there was some sort of commotion going on in the boy's locker room. It sounded like someone was yelling, but it definitely wasn't Chihiro's voice doing all of the screaming. "What the hell?" Leon asked. The yelling was followed by a sickening thud, and the silence that followed was deafening. "That . . . no . . . it's not . . . _it can't . . ._"

"_CHIHIRO . . . CHIHIRO!"_

* * *

DING DANG DING DONG! Author's Announcements!

EDIT: Not as extensive as last time – changed a few lines during Leon and Sayaka's discussion of the secrets. Removed the silly Ishimaru secret due to things that get revealed next chapter (or sometime during four? I think it was next chapter o.O). The old secret was that he'd had to skip half a day of school to go to the dentist because he wasn't able to get the appointment during a school break.

Why yes I am from the Boston area, why do you ask? ~_^

WOW this was a long chapter _ Not including Author's Announcements it cleared 7,000 words. I . . . guess I had a lot to say about Leon? Plus having another character to interact with that wasn't sleep talking Hagakure probably helped you know? I also think I'm going to put more emphasis on their memories returning – they probably aren't as good as full blown flashbacks but if I did that I would _never get this finished_.

There is one more "ghost rule" that's going to crop up, but here are the basics so far: Ghosts can walk through most doorways, but not walls, gated areas like the stairwells, or any doors leading outside. They cannot manipulate objects in the living world but _can_ manipulate objects that were on their person when they died as there are now "ghost" versions of these objects. Ghosts cannot fly. Ghosts can't sleep. No one, including Hagakure, can make any kind of contact with a ghost. Lastly, ghosts can make physical contact with each other but are cold to the touch.

And that paragraph may or may not be helpful in explaining a mystery that's set to show up somewhere around Chapter 05/Chapter 06. The last "ghost rule" pertains to something that hasn't come up yet and I haven't found a good way to work in yet.

I had a few ideas for other secrets (such as an actual serious secret for Ishimaru that would have pertained to his grandfather's scandal) but Sakura's secret? Makes sense. Sakura would ABSOLUTELY not want everyone to know about that.

Song choice: "Just Give Me a Reason", as sung by P!nk and Nate Ruess. This chapter went through a few song changes (as will a lot of these chapters as I find better song choices and do everything in my power to avoid having to use that damn Linkin Park song), but this is what I settled on.

Dixxy


	4. Magnolia

Haunting the Halls

By Dixxy Mouri

Chapter Three: Magnolia

"Mondo? Is everything okay?" Chihiro didn't understand – Mondo had a horrified look on his face. But their conversation had been going so well. Sure he'd freaked out for a second there about being strong, but . . . what happened? _Is it something I said? _But the biker's expression didn't change. He dropped a dumbbell he'd been holding and covered his mouth. ". . . Mondo?"

"Chihiro . . . _Chihiro!"_

Chihiro screamed as Mondo lunged forward, but passed . . . through her?

_. . . am, am I dreaming?_

"Kid, wake up! Don't be dead, don't be dead!"

Chihiro looked at the dumbbell – it had a smear of blood on it.

"What . . . what . . ." she said.

Chihiro felt . . . numb.

Something felt off, and she couldn't figure out what. Something was missing . . .

Chihiro was afraid to turn around. She didn't want to see what Mondo was yelling about. If she didn't look, it wasn't real. She closed her eyes. It wasn't real. She was going to open her eyes and Mondo would ask if she was okay and everything would be just fine. He wasn't screaming over her dead body – Mondo wouldn't hurt her, he couldn't, he was always so protective of her.

_He's protective of me? But he barely knows me . . . right?_

_ . . . no, no that's right!_

Something started to come through the locker room door. _What in the . . .?_

Chihiro's eyes widened. Leon and Sayaka were scrambling into the locker room, but they were see-through . . . and they could walk through doors. But how? They'd both died days ago. She'd seen Sayaka's dead body in Naegi's shower room and watched Leon's execution. How could they be in the locker room? How could . . .

"L, Leon? S, Sayaka?" Chihiro asked.

The two of them didn't say anything – they were looking between her and whatever was going on behind her. Mondo was still yelling at her to not be dead, begging her to not be dead, apologizing over and over and pleading with her to just open her eyes. Chihiro struggled to her feet, clenched her eyes shut, and turned around.

When she opened her eyes again, she couldn't believe what she was looking at.

Mondo was cradling her dead body.

"C'mon . . . c'mon, wake up . . . please . . ."

Chihiro covered her mouth and continued to stare at the scene in horror. "I . . . I . . ."

She felt a cold hand on her shoulder. She turned around to see Sayaka looking at her sadly before pulling her into a hug. It was cold, but it made what had happened all the more real. It was true. She was really dead now, wasn't she? One of her two best friends, one of the people she thought of as her big brothers had really . . .

_But . . . I don't . . . understand . . ._

And that was when it hit her. Her memories.

She'd been a student at Hope's Peak Academy for around two years now. She'd been so sure it had just been what, five or six days? But how did she manage to forget everything? How could she forget that she knew all of these people and . . . it didn't make any sense! People didn't just forget two years of their lives out of nowhere!

Chihiro hadn't been terribly comfortable with classes at Hope's Peak for the first few weeks. She was shy to begin with, and no one seemed to get along too well in Class 78 – it was just the twins (and even then they only got along in the sense that Junko was always bossing Mukuro around and the older twin just took it) and Sayaka and Naegi (because they'd gone to the same junior high school). Really, no one had very much in common and fights erupted regularly.

Especially between Mondo Oowada, the Super High School Level Bike Gang Leader, and Kiyotaka Ishimaru, the Super High School Level Moral Compass. They were _constantly_ at it each other's throats, and all of the yelling made Chihiro nervous. She avoided them when she could, especially with her secret. There's no way Mondo wouldn't try to beat her up or Kiyotaka wouldn't think she was some kind of deviant pervert.

And then the school's gym teacher returned from sick leave about a month or so in and immediately started calling her a freak. He was a stocky manly-man type the school had brought over from another country because of his reputation for whipping teenagers into great physical shape. She had been nervous enough when they had to start physical education classes, but the way she was being treated by their teacher was humiliating. He was screaming broken Japanese directly in her face, so close she could feel his hot, moist breath on her face – she was covered in spittle and tears.

This man began throwing slurs at her and even some of the more foul mouthed members of her class looked horrified. Everyone was staring at her while slur after cuss word was thrown at her . . . now they all _knew_, and it made her stomach turn. They were going to start treating her differently, the girls were going to be afraid of her, the boys were going to tell her to man up and beat her up . . . it was going to be hell. She was going to have to drop out of Hope's Peak Academy and return to her old school – her parents were going to be so disappointed, they'd been _thrilled_ she'd been invited to attend because it was going to give her a future that was beyond their hopes for her. But now, now it wasn't going to be safe here anymore.

Just like that, Chihiro thought her future was ruined.

But then a miracle happened – Mondo and Kiyotaka happened.

She'd been so afraid of the two of them for so long it didn't occur to her that they might try to protect her. Mondo pushed their teacher out of the way – sure, this guy was pretty thick, but the biker was thicker _and_ that all came from muscle, not fat – it was like the difference between an eighteen wheeler and giant, bigoted marshmallow. He immediately started to lay into him, calling him worse than a bully for picking on someone that much smaller than him. According to Mondo, real men didn't pick on people smaller than them.

Of course their teacher didn't give up – he called Mondo a delinquent (". . . so?" had been his response) and threatened to have him kicked out of the school, but Kiyotaka came in citing school policy word for word – teachers were not supposed to harass students based on gender or sexual identity, expose a student's personal information to other students, and even though Mondo _had_ pushed him he'd done so in the defense of another student. Mondo had turned to him in surprise, but a smile crept onto his lips – he was impressed. And Kiyotaka seemed impressed with how quickly Mondo had stepped in as well.

After class was over, both of them were waiting for her and started fussing over her . . . in their own "unique" ways. Quiet and calm wasn't something either of them did particularly well, but they tried their best – Mondo asked her if she was hungry, and Kiyotaka had a bottle of water for her. Clearly, they weren't sure what to do to comfort someone who'd just gone through what their gym teacher had put her through, but she had to give them credit for trying. She thanked Kiyotaka for the water bottle and reminded Mondo that lunch wasn't for another hour, but maybe they could all sit together.

And that was how it started. Chihiro started to learn more and more about these boys who became her self-appointed big brothers. They had problems of their own (she had no idea that Kiyotaka was related to _that_ Toranosuke Ishimaru or that his family was _still_ suffering financially from the scandal) and soft spots (Mondo adored animals, especially dogs, but dragging him away from a pet store was next to impossible sometimes). Everyone kind of stared at them funny when they first started to hang out because, really, their little trio didn't make any sense.

Eventually everyone in their class started to get along, albeit everyone had their little subgroups or friendships or romantic entanglements to deal with. Chihiro, Kiyotaka, and Mondo were their own little group. They brought out the best in each other and, in a lot of ways, it was the happiest she'd ever been. She'd had friends at her other schools, but because she was so quiet she was usually just pulled along for the ride. Mondo and Kiyotaka made sure to ask if there was anything she wanted to do, and some nights they played video games. When Kiyotaka started practicing kendo and got good at it, she and Mondo cheered him on from the sidelines during competitions. Mondo took them both out on his motorcycle separately, but eventually got his hands on a sidecar so the three of them could go together.

When the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happened, they'd started sleeping in the same room. Normally this was against the rules, but they were all shaken by the initial incident – especially Mondo, who had forced himself to hold it together for everyone else – and they were all having nightmares. This arrangement alleviated them. They rotated whose room they used at first but eventually they all unofficially called her room "home" (though it became "official" once they decided to drag the mattresses from Kiyotaka and Mondo's old room in there as well after the school was completely sealed off from the outside world – now that they were in it for the long haul, they needed better rest than the floor could give them). All of them, not just their little trio, were scared, especially once news about everyone's families started to filter in. They'd seen what had happened to Leon and Sayaka, and wondered if there was going to be bad news for everyone else, too.

Kiyotaka had been the third in their class to find anything out – it was early enough that when he was called to the headmaster's office no one assumed the worst automatically, but when he didn't come back to class, she and Mondo got worried because that was simply something he _didn't_ do. They found him practicing kendo in the fifth floor dojo, oddly focused on what he was doing – not that he didn't focus when we had practicing, but something was emotionless and robotic about his motions. Worse, he was using his personal bokken; it was a gift from his parents that he'd never used out of fear that he'd damage it. When Kiyotaka saw them standing there watching him, however, he completely broke down – Chihiro had never seen him cry before, and she knew he'd gotten bad news, just like Sayaka and Leon had.

Someone had blocked off all the exits to Kiyotaka's apartment building before setting it ablaze.

Chihiro was next. Headmaster Kirigiri had sat her down in his office with tea and cookies, and she remembered Kiyotaka mentioning that he'd been greeted with the same "treats". This was apparently the headmaster's way of trying to offer comfort to his students for what was going to be bloody, gruesome news all around, and in that moment Chihiro just _knew_ that no one was going to get good news. No one's family was all right. No one was going to have any friends outside of the school anymore.

Home invasion. Her parents had been home and the intruders . . .

Chihiro didn't remember anything that happened after that, including most of the details of her parents' murder, but either one of her self-proclaimed big brothers found out through some other means and said it was probably best she didn't know. She'd wandered around the school aimlessly, lost in a daze until Mondo and Kiyotaka found her in one of the hallways. She was carried back to their room – neither of them said anything at first, which she didn't mind. Kiyotaka was still mourning his own family, and now it looked like Mondo was trying to find a way to keep the two of them from completely falling to pieces. He was at an unusual advantage, having already been a functional orphan – his mother had died when he was young and his older brother had been gone for about two years. His surrogate family, the Crazy Diamonds, were a large gang of bikers who knew how to fight – they'd be able to defend themselves, everyone assumed. Mondo told them that once everything blew over he'd make sure they were all right – anything they needed, he'd provide himself or find someone with a connection amongst the ranks of his gang to get it for them.

When Mondo found out his gang had been wiped out by an alliance between several other gangs about a week later, he went missing for several hours before she and Kiyotaka found him with an empty bottle and a half of whiskey in the dormitory storage room, his eyes glossy and hazy from the drink. Neither of them were sure if Mondo had ever had alcohol before (he was a minor but he _was_ a delinquent so it wasn't out of the question) but he'd clearly had way, _way_ too much. They weren't able to get him back to their room without help from some of the other students. They'd double teamed taking care of him that night and helped nurse his hangover the following morning.

The three of them went to the headmaster's office together to consent to the shelter plan.

They'd lived in the school for the next year. Chihiro wasn't much of an outdoors person, but she missed the sun – it had been nice to be able to take her laptop outside to do homework or work on a personal project. The inside of the school, despite being well filtered, always felt stale and stagnant. The greenhouse on the fifth floor soon became a popular hangout – it was fake, but it at least smelled kind of like outside.

And then her memories started to get fuzzy . . . she remembered being trapped in a classroom and people crowding around Kirigiri, who was screaming for her father . . . but that was about it. Something was still keeping those memories at bay. But she remembered enough. These people she'd thought she'd just met only a week ago had been her dearest friends.

Including the one who was still begging for her to not to be dead.

Sayaka stepped back. "You got your memories back too, huh?" she said.

Chihiro nodded. "I, I think so."

Chihiro remembered Leon and Sayaka, too. Sayaka sat next to her at orientation – their _real_ orientation – and invited her to a girl's only party the first week of school. She'd tutored Leon in computer science classes and he worked with her on a big project for art class. They'd been smitten with each other after an incident in music class that got them both in trouble and they were virtually inseparable. They'd been her friends, too – not like Mondo and Kiyotaka, but still dear friends

_And yet they . . ._

Memories of what had transpired a few days ago filled her head. Everyone rushing to the dorms when they heard Naegi scream and finding Sayaka's body. That first class trial as they pieced together what happened, and Leon's subsequent nervous breakdown when he'd been found out. And then that horrific execution . . . seeing the body after . . .

It was . . . strange. They both looked all right – Sayaka's shirt wasn't bloodstained or ripped, and Leon looked just the same as ever – not beaten and bruised and bloody. But amazingly, even after what they'd done to each other . . . they didn't seem to hate each other. When Sayaka asked Chihiro about her memories . . . they must have gotten their back as well. And then she figured out the real horror behind what was going on.

Monokuma was making them kill their friends to escape to a world of chaos and despair.

* * *

Leon, Sayaka, and Chihiro sat outside of the crime scene to fill her in on what they knew about their situation. There was no way to contact the living students that they'd found (which made sense – Chihiro would have known that if it had happened).

And it was just a matter of time before Mondo or the rest of the students . . . joined them.

Chihiro wasn't sure how to feel. Mondo was one of her best friends – shouldn't she be angry he'd killed her? No, no she couldn't bring herself to hate him or even be a little mad. This wouldn't have happened if this "game" hadn't been set up. Even if he'd been a gang leader, even if they were notoriously violent, they were still honorable and kept their fights to other gangs only, not innocent bystanders. It was probably the only reason he'd been allowed in the school (although hadn't they admitted someone involved with the yakuza as well?).

Most of all, she didn't want him to die. She didn't want _any_ of them to die.

"What do we do now?" Chihiro asked.

"Wait for the class trial, I guess," said Leon.

"We're . . . still going?"

"I know you couldn't see me, but I was with Leon during his execution," said Sayaka. She swallowed. "Whoever has to die shouldn't be alone. Doesn't matter if it's Mondo alone or everyone else."

"I can't see Mondo successfully fooling everyone – with the way he reacted in there I'm not even sure he's going to even _try_," said Leon. "He isn't stupid, but he's up against Kyouko and you know what? Naegi was able to piece everything together pretty neatly. Between the two of them I think Mondo's doomed himself."

Chihiro wanted to yell at Leon for saying such a thing, but realized he was probably right. Kirigiri was the Super High School Level Detective – she'd been responsible for the arrests of criminals much more devious and crafty than Mondo could ever hope to be. And Naegi had been pretty good at putting the pieces together in the first trial – maybe he'd do it again.

Then she remembered how badly Leon had broken down when he realized he was going to die. She didn't want to see Mondo go through that. She didn't want to see one of her big brothers just break like that before being dragged to a death they didn't deserve. Even if it meant maybe she'd "get him back" because he'd be a ghost and he'd probably remember . . . that wasn't what she wanted.

The door to the boy's locker room opened – Mondo emerged with the rolled up carpet over his shoulder. He dropped it on the floor of the entrance hall, looked at the girl's locker room door, and swore before hastily exiting the room. "What's he think he's doing?" asked Sayaka, starting to follow him. Leon and Chihiro followed suit.

"Covering up his crime. He saw what happened to me and knows he's next," said Leon.

Chihiro swallowed. It didn't take long before Mondo was at the entrance to the school on the first floor, by the entrance. This was where Monokuma was keeping the electroIDs of the deceased students. He rifled through them before grabbing Sayaka's, closing his eyes, and taking a few deep breaths. "What's he going to do with that?" Sayaka asked.

The three ghosts exchanged a confused look before following him back to the second floor, where they watched him use Sayaka's ID to get into the girl's locker room. The door opened, and he dragged the rolled up carpet inside. He then proceeded to roll up the carpet in the girl's room and dragged that into the boy's room, where he unrolled it and replaced the moved workout equipment. He paused, looked around, and settled on the poster of some girl in a swimsuit who'd gotten blood on her. He pulled it down from the wall, careful not to tear it.

"Isn't he worried about fingerprints?" asked Leon.

"I don't think they've got a way to check for them," said Sayaka.

Chihiro shook her head. "Kyouko could probably do it . . ."

"I doubt it – her dark secret, according to Monokuma, is that she's got amnesia," said Leon.

"But we all had it . . . have it . . . right?" Chihiro asked in surprise.

"I think she's got it worse – Monokuma probably didn't want the Super High School Level Detective running around with memories of _being_ the Super High School Level Detective intact," said Sayaka. "She's the only one who hasn't said anything about her talent, and if she can't remember what it is that would be one explanation as to why, right?"

By now, Mondo had brought the bloodied poster into the girl's room and was removing the poster of a boy band from the wall. The model went up in the girl's room, and the pretty boys were brought into the boy's room. He set up the carpet in the girl's room, just like he had in the boy's room. Then Mondo knelt down over Chihiro's body and started patting her down before finally producing her electroID.

"Okay, I sort of get why he wanted Sayaka's . . . but what's he going to do with Chihiro's?" Leon asked. Sayaka and Chihiro didn't have a good answer for him as they watched him pocket the electroID before picking up Chihiro's body, cradling her and resting her head on his shoulder. He was saying something softly to her as he carried her into the girl's locker room, where he gently laid her down on the carpet, stretching her out and leaving her hands folded over her stomach.

"That's . . . kind of . . . you almost look peaceful, Chihiro," said Sayaka.

In a weird way, she kind of did. He'd closed her eyes and, if it weren't for the blood caked in her hair, she really would have looked like she was sleeping, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. She didn't understand.

"It's . . . it's okay, kid," he finally stuttered. Mondo stood, clenched his eyes shut, and swallowed. "I . . . I'm probably going to die tomorrow . . . and if I do, I deserve it. I, I know you probably think I should just turn myself in . . ." Chihiro crept closer, her eyes locked on Mondo's. He was crying – not a lot, but his eyes were red and watery. "I don't . . . I don't wanna die, but you didn't, either. I'm just . . . I'm terrified."

Chihiro settled in front of him. "Mondo . . ."

"I have promises I gotta keep on the outside. I know you'd probably think they're just a bunch of idiots, but my gang? They're good guys . . . mostly. I can't let them down. My brother left me in charge and I can't let him down, either," he said. "They're my family. I never had a dad and my mom was a wreck . . . I can't . . . I can't let them down."

All of the ghosts felt a little sick. They knew the Crazy Diamonds were dead. Mondo didn't.

"I . . . I don't want to die like Kuwata did but if they find me out . . . and they probably will . . . I deserve it. You didn't deserve this. And . . . and I think I'm okay with that. It's only fair I die. But I can't just give myself up . . . I have to keep the guys together if I can. I just . . . I don't know what to do, okay?! I don't want to die, I don't want to let my gang down . . . I don't want everyone else to die. I don't know, okay!?"

Chihiro covered her mouth. "Mondo . . ."

"That's why . . . I figured out there's only one thing I _can_ do that I'm sure about," he said. Mondo smiled a little, wiping his tears with his sleeve. "I'm going to protect your dignity, kid. It's all you've got left, isn't it? So, that's what I've decided that no matter what happens to me, I'm going to protect your secret."

The ghosts froze. "Wait . . ." said Sayaka.

"He's . . ."

Chihiro eyes widened.

"They're going to find you in here, in the girl's room . . . so they're gonna think you're a girl. They don't have to know you're a boy and that you died in the boy's room." Mondo closed his eyes and patted his pocket. "I . . . kind of accidentally broke my electroID the other day. Turns out they don't like the sauna too much, so I'm going to stick yours in there. It'll break it so they won't be able to see you were a dude. Doesn't matter if I die or not – I'm taking your secret to my grave!"

Suddenly, everything he'd done made sense. Mondo wasn't covering up his crime.

Even if he didn't remember, even if he'd killed her . . . somewhere inside of him, Mondo was still her big brother, still trying to protect her – maybe it was a fragment of a memory, maybe it wasn't, but this was the person she cared about, trying to help her one last time. It was all he could do for her now, and Chihiro started to shake.

"Chihiro. . ." said Sayaka.

It was all too much for her, and she started to wail.

* * *

Monokuma's morning announcement was different.

The ghosts had spent the night in the cafeteria – not that it mattered much, but it was quiet at night. They'd followed Mondo around for a short bit and saw that he kept his word – he got rid of her electroID in the sauna, and it didn't take long before it made an unusual cracking noise and started to smoke. He got rid of her duffel bag, too, and then went to bed but didn't appear to be sleeping.

"I didn't sleep that night, either," Leon said, "and I didn't even know what was coming to me."

But now it was the following day, and it was only a matter of time before she was discovered – especially with Monokuma sending them on a hunt. No one was in the cafeteria yet, and it was difficult to say if anyone would gather there, considering the announcement. It was possible they might, just to try and figure out who was missing, but more than likely they're start combing the first two floors of the school to try and see if could find the body.

Chihiro pushed herself off the table she'd been sitting on. "Chihiro?"

"I . . . I think I want to be there," she said. "With . . . my body."

"Are you sure?" asked Sayaka.

"Yeah . . . I think so," said Chihiro. "It . . . it might be the last time I see my body."

Sayaka seemed to be considering this – during the trial, her body had been removed from Naegi's room, leaving no trace it had ever existed behind. Chances are Leon's body had been removed from the execution area. Chihiro suspected that maybe more executions were being prepared – one for Mondo, and one for everyone else.

_If only there was a way to stop all of them . . ._

"If you think you want to," said Sayaka, "it's up to you."

Chihiro nodded, and the three headed to the second floor. Their classmates were searching throughout the floors, trying to figure out if Monokuma was just messing with them or not. The ghosts (and Mondo, of course) knew he wasn't, so now it was just a matter of whether or not he was going to be found guilty or not.

The ghosts found Naegi and Togami investigating the entryway to the locker room. They were close by, so it wouldn't be much longer now. Leon and Sayaka put their hands on Chihiro's shoulder, giving her looks to let her know that she didn't have to do this if she didn't want to. It was bad enough dying and seeing her body before. This might have been worse.

But it was okay. Mondo had tried to leave her body . . . well . . . as dignified as it could be. Right?

Togami made note that the girl's locker room looked suspicious. Naegi didn't want to go in, but Monokuma assured him he'd unlocked all of the doors for "investigative purposes". There had always been an unspoken agreement that Monokuma watched their every move on those surveillance cameras, probably so he could confirm who a culprit was in any given instance. Of course he knew where Chihiro's body would be discovered.

They watched Naegi enter the room, and he let out a blood curdling scream.

Chihiro swallowed and marched forward . . . and then screamed herself.

"Chihiro, what's – WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE!?"

The body had been _crucified._

Chihiro was staring at her body in horror, unable to move or speak after seeing the state of her corpse. It hadn't been Mondo who did this – he'd gone back to his room after destroying he electroID and disposing of his duffel bag (which Yamada had made it a little too easy – he must have left the gate to the trash room open on accident, so Mondo had no trouble getting to it and using it). As far as the ghosts knew he hadn't left, and based on his "speech" to Chihiro, it didn't seem like something he'd go back and do. But there she was, hanging there like a limp rag doll.

Someone else had messed with the crime scene.

"Sayaka, let's get Chihiro out of here," Leon suggested. Chihiro didn't protest as she was pulled away. They passed a frantic Kiyotaka en route to the locker rooms – he would be the required third person for the corpse discovery announcement, and sure enough the sound of Monokuma cheerfully announcing a body had been discovered followed mere second later.

But staring at her other brother made Chihiro worried. She was gone, and if Naegi and Kyouko kept up their game from the first trial, Mondo would be, too. Even if he didn't remember, he'd be the only one from their little trio left. And then it occurred to Chihiro that even if he didn't remember, he and Mondo had bonded again. They were calling each other Kyoudai again, and had been hanging all over each other, finding a semblance of support with each other.

If Mondo was found out, Kiyotaka was going to lose the only semblance of sanity he had in this place. He'd never been very good at making friends before coming to Hope's Peak, and sure enough he didn't have much contact with the students from his old high school or his junior high. As far as Kiyotaka was concerned, Mondo wasn't just his _only_ friend, he was his _first_ friend, period.

If Chihiro's heart was still beating, it would have been pounding in her chest.

This trial, one way or another, was going to destroy Kiyotaka.

* * *

Sayaka brought Chihiro to the library while Leon returned to the girl's locker room to see if he could figure out who had done that to her body. As shook up as she'd been by her murder, this was worse. Even though it wasn't exactly an "accident", Mondo definitely hadn't planned on killing her and clearly felt awful about the whole thing. He wouldn't do . . . _that_. Whoever did _this_ had done it on purpose and put thought into it – writing on the wall, a crucifixion . . .

"Why would someone do that to me?" asked Chihiro. "There's no point to it!"

"I . . . I don't know. But I don't think anyone here is acting the way they normally would," said Sayaka. "If I'd remembered . . . I would have never started this." She looked down at her hands. "I got things started. If I had just held on . . . this wouldn't have happened. I don't know if Monokuma would have given us more motives until someone cracked but maybe if we had more time we could have all gotten out of here alive."

"Sayaka . . ." Chihiro said. She wasn't sure how to finish that sentence.

"My money's on Togami." Leon came until the library unannounced, a cross look on his face. "Mondo looked JUST as shocked as everyone else, but something about Togami was . . . I don't know how to describe it, but he suddenly decided Naegi was going to be his assistant and dragged him off somewhere. He looks cocky and pleased with him."

"Why the hell would Togami do that?!" asked Sayaka. "How is messing with someone else's crime scene going to . . . I don't even know how to finish that sentence! That was just cruel and mean-spirited! Crucifying her?! Writing 'BLOOD BATH FEVER' all over the wall? That didn't do ANYONE any favors!"

Chihiro bit her bottom lip. "It's a game to him," she said. "I . . . don't know if you guys were there or not, but when we all found the library a few days ago he said that this was just a game and we were all enemies." She lowered her eyes. "I wanted everyone to work together . . . so we could all get out of here alive. I even took a laptop from the library and started working on something I thought might help."

"You fixed one of those busted laptops?" asked Sayaka.

Chihiro's eyes widened. "Yeah. I did. And she's in one of the lockers in the bath house!"

". . . she?" asked Sayaka.

Momentarilyu forgetting about what had befallen her corpse, Chihiro got excited. "Yes! I remade Alter Ego!" She started to laugh. "There aren't any cameras in the bath house so I hid her in there. She's working on decoding files on her laptop – I thought they might help us find out what was going on."

For the first time in a long time, Leon and Sayaka's face lit up with hope. "Chihiro! That's wonderful!" Sayaka and Leon rushed forward to hug her, and even though they were all still cold to the touch Chihiro could have sworn it felt warm and she felt at peace. Even if she was gone, even if she was dead, even if there was nothing she could do to stop whatever was going to come next . . . if their classmates figured out what happened, they would have hope.

* * *

The Class Trial went as smoothly as it could, considering that Togami was able to get Fukawa to switch to her other personality and now the Super High School Lever Serial Killer (seriously, what the hell were the talent scouts thinking?) was not only exposed, but also present for a good portion of the trial. Better still, they were able to figure out that, despite Togami _trying to take the blame for the crime _(which led to Leon screaming in frustration before slamming his fists and head into the wall) that both he and Fukawa were innocent.

( . . . well, at least for Chihiro's murder, but Genocider Syo's crimes were not on trial.)

But then Kyouko wanted to go back to the crime scene. Monokuma protested at first, but decided to go for it after being promised it would make things more interesting. Everyone had trekked back to the girl's locker room, where she had Sakura investigate Chihiro's body one more time. Sakura seemed confused at first, but soon enough discovered the truth behind the biological sex of the corpse.

The ghosts could see disappointment in Mondo's face. The last thing he had tried to do for Chihiro hadn't worked out – her classmates knew, and it was causing a stir – even Togami didn't seem to know about it, even after all he'd done to her corpse. On the way back to the courtroom, Chihiro fell in line next to Mondo. He looked a little lost in thought, only half paying attention to what Kiyotaka was saying about the case. She tried to her hand on his arm, but it passed right through him. "Thank you for trying," Chihiro whispered to Mondo.

But now everything seemed to be at a standstill – they'd figured out the crime scenes were switched and that the electroIDs in the hall were important. One of them was broken, which everyone assumed had to have been Leon's, but it looked like Mondo had swapped his broken one out for it earlier, maybe even before the murder took place – how else could he have gotten into the boy's locker room?

Then Kyouko brought up Chihiro's tracksuit, suggesting that the killer and Chihiro must have had the same color tracksuit. None of the ghosts understood that logic – it had nothing to do with anything that had happened last night. Chihiro went to Mondo because she thought he was strong, not because of anything to do with his fashion sense.

Or at least, that's what she thought.

Mondo fell right into Kyouko's trap, making note the color of both of their tracksuits. Only the murderer would have known a detail like the color of the tracksuit, since it had been disposed of, and once Naegi pointed that out, the color drained from his face. Celes (who couldn't have done it because she had no way of getting into the boy's locker room) confirmed Chihiro's tracksuit was blue from their encounter earlier that night, and the final nail had been slammed into the coffin.

"He's done for," said Leon. "Kyouko and Naegi aren't gonna – _oh no_."

The trial was suddenly interrupted by Kiyotaka rushing to Mondo, grabbing him by the jacket, and asking him why he hadn't tried to defend himself, and demanding, insisting that he wouldn't do something like that and of course Naegi and Kyouko were wrong. Mondo just stared at him with this scared, panicked expression scrawled across his face as he realized that Chihiro wasn't the only one he'd hurt.

Chihiro covered her mouth. This was exactly what she was afraid of.

As scared as she was for Mondo, as happy as she was that everyone else was going to live for even just a little bit longer . . . she couldn't bear to see her other brother like this. He hadn't been getting along too well with the other students – not everyone like the early morning meetings in the cafeteria, he'd been having trouble connecting with the others, and if Mondo died, he was going to be alone. No one remembered Kiyotaka slowly learning to relax a little around his peers when they weren't in class, no one remembered trips to karaoke bars where he and Yamada would sing off-key duets or being a surprisingly good cook or anything that had finally brought him out of his shell.

No one would remember the person he could be.

Mondo lowered his head – he couldn't look at Kiyotaka and confess at the same time.

And it only got worse from there.

Of course the others voted him guilty . . . except for Kiyotaka, who'd tried to vote for himself in a desperate bid to save Mondo. "Kiyotaka!" Chihiro ran to her friend, and stood before him, screaming at him. "Stop it! Get a hold of yourself! You have to hold on! Please, for me, for Mondo!" She reached for him, but her arms kept passing through him. It was bad enough she was going to have to watch Monokuma kill one of her dear big brothers, she didn't want to watch the other one break.

But something in Kiyotaka's eyes was already broken.

"Dude! You need to get a hold of yourself! Come on! Don't do this!" Leon and Sayaka had joined her – they'd be able to help Mondo soon enough, but Kiyotaka was fading _quickly_. But it was no use – Kiyotaka was on his knees, gripping the podium as the world crashed down around him. No one else was coming to his aide – they all must have thought he was crazy for trying to defend a murderer.

By now Monokuma was busy telling them all Chihiro's secret in great detail, and for a moment she could feel the unpleasant stench of their gym teacher envelop her. But then he told them Mondo had killed his older brother, and something in Chihiro snapped. For as long as she could remember, she wasn't the type to get angry – she'd start crying or run away, or someone else would come to her defense and try to cheer her up and make her feel better, especially Mondo and Kiyotaka. But now Kiyotaka was broken and Mondo was being dragged through the mud before he was going to be put out of his misery. Hadn't he gone through enough? Hadn't they all gone through enough? This wasn't his idea, none of them wanted to play this stupid game, and now . . .

For the first time in her life, Chihiro saw red.

"YOU MONSTER!" she screamed. Chihiro left Kiyotaka to stand before Monokuma. "I HOPE YOU DIE! I HOPE YOU PAY FOR THIS! I HOPE SOMEONE RIPS OUT YOUR STUFFING AND LIGHTS IT ON FIRE!" Chihiro was crying now, but she didn't back down – it only fueld her rage. "WHEN THE OTHERS FIND A WAY OUT OF HERE YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO US! YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT! YOU MONSTER!"

Chihiro tried to throw a punch, but it passed through the bear and she ended up falling forward on her hands and knees. Leon helped her to her feet and pulled her into a hug, patting her back and trying to calm her down. She wanted to start screaming at him, too, but realized there was no point. She couldn't save Mondo from being humiliated or being killed. She wasn't going to be able to get through to Kiyotaka. And nothing she could do was going to hurt Monokuma.

_"I deserve it. You didn't deserve this. And . . . and I think I'm okay with that. It's only fair I die."_

Mondo had accepted the possibility he was going to die the night before.

Kyouko did, however, offer him one small condolence. She'd figured out why he'd destroyed Chihiro's electroID. She knew it was to protect Chihiro. Even though he was doomed, even though there was nothing anyone could do to help Mondo now, she wanted him to know that this one act of kindness would not go unnoticed, and she wanted to make sure everyone else knew it, too.

Monokuma announced it was time for Mondo's punishment. Kiyotaka screamed for the bear to wait, but their tormentor gleefully ignored him as he produced his mallet from out of seemingly nowhere. The big red button was pressed with it's cute little "ding", signaling the start of the end. Mondo tried to turn away to walk to his execution, but he wasn't going to be allowed that dignity. A chain and collar, just like the one that had brought Leon to his death, shot out of nowhere and closed itself around Mondo's neck and pulled him off into the abyss, Kiyotaka and Chihiro screaming his name.

Even if there was still a heart beat in Kiyotaka's chest, all three of them were dead.

* * *

DING DANG DING DONG! Author's Announcements!

EDIT: The word count tells me that I made edits but I don't recall what they were. They were probably pretty minior.

Aw man, so I got this beta reader for the story so now hopefully the amount of typos is going to drop like a rock! I'm also probably going to have a hand in their story as well, so go check out "Give a Little Luck" if you haven't already – the writing is very good and there are some PAINFULLY GOOD references to in-game stuff.

Also as much as it should be obvious I like the anime/video game about teenagers murderering each other . . . DID YOU GUYS HEAR THAT WE'RE GETTING A NEW DUB OF THE ORIGINAL SAILOR MOON ANIME AND IT'S GOING TO BE UNCUT AND WE'RE GETTING STARS FOR THE FIRST TIME BECAUSE I'M SHITTING RAINBOWS OVER HERE!

I can't decide if I should actively avoid or desperately find a place for Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" for a song choice.

Song Choice: "Magnolia" by The Hush Sound. I love this band, and there are probably going to crop up again (possibly as soon as next chapter). I call them my "hipster" band because they aren't that mainstream or anything

Dixxy


	5. Mad World

Haunted

By Dixxy Mouri  
Chapter Four: Mad World

_At least it looks like I get to have one last ride . . . not that I deserve one._

Mondo had been tied to his motorcycle, Monokuma sitting in front of him with his paws on the handle bars and . . . really? A pompadour. The fucking teddy bear was wearing a pompadour. _I guess I deserve to be mocked right now, too._ He looked ahead for a moment and saw one of those huge, circular cages they used for bike tricks. He'd always been tempted to try one.

Not that he expected this to be "fun". He used to be fascinated by them as a kid when Daiya brought him to motorcycle expos and they watched the live demonstrations. When he'd been younger he'd always been asking if he could try it, and his brother always told him no, that he was too young and it was too dangerous, and it always made him angry because he hated being too young, but then Daiya would throw him over his shoulder, yell at him to not make a scene, and they'd go somewhere else.

Mondo knew Daiya would have no way of actually knowing, but maybe some part of him knew that one of those cages was going to be the literal death of him. Maybe on some sort of cosmic level, some small part of his brother's mind knew, just _knew, _that his little brother was going to be killed in one and he'd done everything in his power to stave off fate or destiny or whatever, but now Daiya was dead and even if he wasn't there was no way he'd be able to save him now.

Not that Mondo wanted to be saved.

Really, Mondo wasn't that concerned about himself. It was bad enough he'd killed Chihiro. It was bad enough he couldn't keep his secret for him. It was bad enough that everyone knew what had happened to Daiya. But seeing Ishimaru, his only friend here, freaking out like that back in the courtroom and hearing him screaming now . . .

This . . . this was too much.

The bike engine roared to life and rocketed forward. For a moment, Mondo was angry – he'd accelerated too fast, that would be bad for the bike. Then again, whatever Monokuma had in mind probably wouldn't be good for his bike in the long run anyways. Not that the bear seemed to care – he was ejected from the bike before it entered the cage.

For a few seconds, the bike was just going round and round and round, and Mondo was feeling sick to his stomach. If he'd eaten anything recently (he couldn't – he hadn't been able to eat after what he'd done to Chihiro . . . poor kid, he didn't deserve what he'd done to him) it would have been all over the cage.

Then came the crackling, buzzing sound.

_Electricity._

The cage lit up, sparks shooting across the cage in a web. Mondo screamed, the bike whipping around faster and faster, the friction of the air and the zapping of the electrical current buzzing and the sound of his own screaming was so loud he couldn't even hear Kiyotaka anymore. It all came to a chaotic, noisy head – his body couldn't take it anymore, he felt like he going to explode, there was a sharp pain in the middle of his chest . . .

. . . and then suddenly he was flying. . .

. . . and then he was falling.

Mondo landed flat on his back. He winced, but then realized the impact hadn't hurt or knocked the wind out of him. _Shit. Now the bear's going to want to try again._ He wondered if he was going to do something different this time, like just flat out crash him into a wall – if he was going fast enough that would kill him. Or have him get hit by the truck that should have taken him out three years ago anyways.

_Wait. Three years ago? But Daiya's only been gone one year . . ._

_ No. No, it's been three years. But . . ._

Mondo opened his eyes and nearly screamed when he saw Chihiro hovering over him. "Mondo," he – no, _she_, Chihiro was a _she_ – cried. He studied her for a minute. That was right. They'd been classmates for two whole years now. Her and Kiyotaka and everyone else had been together for the whole two years.

Things at Hope's Peak didn't start off all that great. Mondo knew that just the reputation of the school was enough to guarantee success one day, so he'd parked his bike in the teacher's parking lot (the student lot was just for seniors and full up anyways) and walked in like he'd owned the place. And he probably would, he figured.

The first one he'd met had been the man who was still probably screaming for him. Ishimaru had actually been the first of their class to arrive and had been immediately put to work by the staff, directing people to dorm rooms or whatever. He was an up-tight goody two-shoes and Mondo immediately got a headache when he got a look at him. This guy was going to be a hell of a nuisance, he'd figured.

Mondo got the notion that the feeling was mutual when he introduced himself as the Super High School Lever Bike Gang Leader. Ishimaru looked _insulted_ by the idea that they were on the same level, and for a few weeks the two of them exchanged nothing but insults, glares, and detention slips which Mondo never served – he usually just tossed them, but one day he started saving them and left them all in a neatly wrapped gift box outside of the prefect's dorm room. Ishimaru's reaction had been _gold,_ showing up outside _his_ dorm room unable to form cohesive sentences and waving the unwrapped box around as he tried to talk with his hands but failed. Mondo simply watched him flail while casually eating a box of Pocky, giving Ishimaru the _coup d'etat_ by offering him one of the chocolate covered cookie sticks.

Mondo was finding that most of the other students were afraid of him (except for Sakura Oogami – probably because they both knew she could break his face if he tried anything). In particular the Super High School Lever Programmar always looked like she was going to cry whenever she so much as looked at him and ran off. This was nothing new, of course – being a Crazy Diamond let to this happening on a regular basis – but watching her run off like that made him, well, upset.

Thing came to a head on their first day of gym class. Mondo had been just as shocked as everyone else to learn Chihiro had been born a boy, but something in him _broke_ when she started crying and their teacher wouldn't stop. It was like beating a dog when they were down, and he saw red. Who the _fuck_ cared if this kid preferred running around in a dress? He wasn't hurting anyone!  
So he muscled his way between them – even at sixteen he was still much bigger than most of the teachers and used that to his advantage. But when the teacher started to threaten him, Mondo got an unexpected ally – Ishimaru. And in that moment he decided he wasn't as big of a dork as he'd originally thought, and the two discovered they worked together _great_.

While changing after gym, they talked – really talking, not just yelling at each other – for the first time. Ishimaru was impressed by how Mondo hadn't been afraid to stand up for Chihiro (at least once the initial surprise had passed), and he had to admit the prefect's vast knowledge of school regulation and knowing _exactly_ what he needed to cite was impressive. They decided it was best to check up on Chihiro and see how she was doing, but she'd changed for gym class back in her dorm room (which they all had the option to do, fairly enough, but she'd been the only one to take the school up on the offer and now they all knew _why_). So they decided to see if she needed cheering up.

Then it occurred to them neither of them really knew _how_ to do that, especially with someone as shy and nervous as little Chihiro. Maybe she was hungry? Ishimaru had an extra bottle of water on him, so they decided to see if she needed to eat lunch and/or drink something. It didn't exactly seem like the _correct_ response (her reaction to it was surprise and confusion), but she seemed to appreciate the effort, and someone got the bright idea to get dinner together.

The meal went smoothly – they mostly talked about themselves, since none of them had much in common, but it was interesting. Ishimaru believed in hard work over everything else because of his grandfather – this was the first time that Mondo had ever thought _this_ Ishimaru was related to _that_ Ishimaru, but he understood where his gumption came from. He wanted to bring honor back to his family. They'd been well-off when he was younger, but the scandal had destroyed not only their reputation, but their finances as well – his father had a hard time keeping a job not because of anything he was doing wrong but because of the association with his shamed grandfather. Chihiro, for her part, was interested in advanced programming and was dabbling into AIs and robotics, the former of which needed to be explained to Mondo, but when he found out it meant computers that could think for themselves he was floored. She gave him some popular media examples (pretty much any" robot with a heart" had some form of artificial intelligence) and explained she was trying to program one on her own in her dorm she was going to name "Alter Ego". She'd started it _two days ago_ and was already at the point where she just needed to fine tune it.

Ishimaru had asked how he got involved with the gang, so Mondo talked about Daiya and how they'd started it together . . . kind of. He was only ten at the time and still too small to ride by himself, but Daiya always brought him out on the bike anyways. The gang didn't always take him seriously at first but understood he didn't have anyone but his older brother – his father had left before he was born and their mom had drunk herself to death. Daiya said it was important to protect your family, be it the gang or the one you were born into. He didn't actually take any leadership roles until he was fourteen, when his brother finally felt he was old enough to ride on his own.

For about a year, things were great. He and Ishimaru started calling each other "Kyoudai" (Chihiro preferred to stick with given names, which was fine by him). They started getting along with the rest of their classmates, but everyone had their sub-groups and confidants and best friends and significant others that they turned to in times of crisis or the people they shared their secrets with. For Mondo, this was Chihiro and Kiyotaka. He'd confided in them that he didn't know who his biological father was when one teacher gave them a family history assignment. He'd found out in elementary school when he'd been given a similar assignment and started to notice just how much he _didn't_ look like the man he'd thought was his father. Daiya told him the truth when he caught him comparing pictures of the Oowada family patriarch to his own reflection.

Mondo's biological father was some business manager director who the fuck cares from the United States _who'd already been married with five kids_ when he knocked his mother up – he made himself pretty scarce and went back to his family. For a while he'd been curious and wanted to find him, but eventually realized that this man had never thought much of his mother (she was someone to cheat on his wife with) and probably would have thought even less of him – after all, he was being primed to be the leader of a notorious biker gang, this guy wouldn't want the association. Part of Mondo had wanted to find him anyways and show up at his front door just to mess with him.

For Kiyotaka, he had more to do with his grandfather's scandal than he'd cared to admit. Toranosuke Ishimaru had been a brilliant politician who'd been caught in a scandal so big even little kids were aware of it (Mondo had been five and more concerned with action figures at the time but even he knew the gist of it – he'd stolen a lot of money and everyone was angry). What hadn't come out, however, was that he'd embezzled all that money to pay for his beloved grandson's ransom. Kiyotaka had been grabbed off a playground near his home – he'd gotten out of his mother's line of vision and suddenly found himself being shoved into the back seat of a car. They kept him in a basement and gave him prepackaged meals and bottled water three times a day, and there was a bucket he could use to relieve himself. He hadn't been harmed, but he'd been frightened the whole time – it had been dark, they yelled and shrieked at him whenever his crying got loud, and he was terrified he wasn't going to see his parents again.

The news of the kidnapping was hadn't reached the news outlets, likely because it was a condition of the ransom (what he'd done would still be wrong, but people would sympathize with a grandfather trying to save his grandson more than a greedy old man taking money to buy a yacht or something), but it destroyed his family. He'd come out of the situation feeling like if his grandfather hadn't relied on natural talent he could have figured out another way to rescue him that wouldn't have done the damage it did. Genius couldn't save him, but maybe hard work could have.

Chihiro's biggest secret had already been exposed, so she sometimes tried to confide in them small things, like how she liked to count ceiling tiles if she was bored or going skinny dipping in her backyard, which was completely fenced in so it wasn't like she was risking _much_ – Mondo said if she _really_ wanted to experience the thrill of skinny dipping then the three of them would sneak into the pool on the second floor in the middle of the night.

(Mondo and Chihiro _still_ weren't sure how they got Kiyotaka to go along with it).

Of course she'd been bullied a lot as a child, both before and during those weeks and months she'd started presenting as a girl. She'd been beaten up a couple of times and ignored by her peers until her parents transferred her to a new school so she could get a fresh start. She'd been surprised that both Mondo and Kiyotaka could sympathize – Mondo had been given a hard time for being raised by his brother (apparently being a functional orphan made someone a target for bullying at Mondo's elementary school), and Kiyotaka had seen plenty of retaliation for his acts as hall monitor at his old schools.

For a year, life was grand.

And then the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happened and the school was closed off – no one left, no one came in – only an automated delivery system provided food and other supplies from outside, and that system was rigged so no one could sneak in or out by abusing it. But almost everyone began to sulk after a while, and it seemed like nothing was going to improve. Outside was getting worse. Students in the other classes were starting to act strangely – Kiyotaka sparred with one of them regularly and said she hadn't been herself for a while, but it seemed like more than just the solemnity of their situation that was causing it.

The only one who seemed to have any hope about going back outside one day was Makoto Naegi, one of the Super High School Level Good Lucks who'd been enrolled at the time of the crisis. No one, not even Naegi, really understood how he'd gotten into the school because his luck really _wasn't_ all that good, but if there was anything he had in spades, it was pure, unadulterated optimism. His belief that things were going to get better got so strong, and the bad luck surrounding his everyday life got so _bad_, that Jin Kirigiri, the headmaster, officially changed his title:

Super High School Level _Hope_.

It wasn't long after that things became a blur. Screaming and crying all over the school, being led somewhere at gunpoint, the image of Monokuma laughing as he declared a victory for despair, something about a television show . . . it was all a mess, and he couldn't put any of it together. Whatever had caused the return of these lost memories hadn't returned all of them, and they probably held the key to what was going on.

But that wasn't important right that second. One of his best friends was staring at him with tears in her eyes. He'd screwed it all up – she was dead, and it didn't look like Kiyotaka was faring much better. All because he couldn't keep his temper in check. All because he'd forgotten about everything that really mattered. He felt himself start to cry. "Chihiro . . . I fucked up. I fucked up real bad."

She frowned at him, still crying. He tried to sit up (which was a challenge because his hands were still bound up tight behind him – well _that_ was going to suck if he was stuck like that for all eternity) and saw Leon and Sayaka standing nearby, looking just as see-through and miserable as she did. "We're all dead, aren't we?" he asked. No one needed to confirm his suspicion, though Chihiro nodded.

"I'm not mad, Mondo," she said. "It's okay – I forgive you."

"She pretty much forgave you immediately," said Sayaka, taking a seat next to him.

Mondo wasn't sure what to say next, but that's when he realized the device that had killed him was still going. Or, rather, it was finally slowing down. He swallowed, wondering what his body was going to look like. Chihiro, Leon, and Sayaka stopped what they were doing to watch to, and none of them expected what they saw next.

Mondo's body was nowhere to be seen.

". . . the hell?" asked Leon. "Did you get vaporized?"

"Wait, what's the machine on the side?" Sayaka asked. Everyone turned to look at a machine that was making a soft whirring noise near the cage Mondo had died in. No one had really noticed it before, but it looked like it had some sort of a chute that something like come out of. "Do you think Mondo's body is inside of it?"

"Maybe but . . . what _is_ it?" asked Chihiro.

_Ding._

_ Ding._

_ Ding!_

Out of the chute came a small plastic tub. It was butter, and it had Mondo's face on it.

Mondo's jaw dropped. ". . . wait is that . . . did he . . . _butter_?! The _fuck_?!"

Sayaka's face started to twitch. "Oh . . . oh _GOD_."

And that wasn't even the worst part. Monokuma took the butter tub, presumably containing Mondo's remains, and brought it to a darkened corner. A spotlight shone over to, where a small table with pancakes was waiting. The bear took a seat and began to slather the butter that had presumably once been Mondo all over the pancakes.

"He's not going to . . ." Leon asked in disbelief.

They could hear someone from the remaining pool of living students vomit.

Monokuma began to giddily devour the pancakes.

"He's eating me over pancakes. That fucking teddy bear is _eating me over pancakes!_"

Mondo was half ready to fly into a rage, but he felt Chihiro's arms (which were cold – apparently ghosts were cold) wrapped around his arm. She was still crying, still trying to comfort him, and the anger subsided. It's not like it really mattered much. He was dead – he didn't need his body anymore. It would have been nice if something . . . dignified . . . had happened to it after, but that was never going to happen here. The damn teddy bear probably had sadistic executions planned out for all them.

More importantly, there was Chihiro. He'd ended her life in a fit of rage for no good reason. And here she was trying to make him feel better. She didn't _have_ to. Leon and Sayaka said she'd forgiven him almost immediately – but why? "Chihiro . . . could you let go of me for a second?" Chihiro slowly backed away from him, looking at him with teary eyes.

Mondo lowered his head. "This is my fault. It's my fault your dead. I'm sorry, Chihiro."

"No, not it's not," she said. She knelt in front of him while Leon went around behind him (probably to do something about his hands – he could feel cold fingers trying to loosen the knot). She swallowed, composed herself, and tried to put on an angry face. "It's all Monokuma's fault! That stupid bear did all this! This wouldn't have happened if he hadn't . . . if he hadn't . . ."

Mondo was about to agree, but with the "excitement" from the execution over, he could hear Kiyotaka's cries again. He froze, listening to the sound of his wails. "Kyoudai!" he called. He could see him through the chain link fence – he was on his hands and knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Hagakure was trying to calm him down but to no avail – the prefect was completely inconsolable.

"He can't hear me . . ." he said dumbly. "KYOUDAI!" Mondo somehow got to his feet and raced to the chain link fence. "Kyoudai! _Kyoudai! Please, please, pull yourself together! Don't fucking do this! Come on, get up! You have to survive! You have to . . ._ you have to . . ." By now the other ghosts had caught up to him, but nothing they could do or say was going to make him feel better.

Mondo began to wonder if he hadn't killed just Chihiro.

* * *

Leon hadn't been able to get him untied right away, but they needed to move if they wanted to get on the elevator with the other students, so for the ride back up to the school Mondo was filled in on what was going on while they continued to try and get him unbound. As far as they could tell, memories were retrieved upon death, though there appeared to be an unknown period of time that was still lost – it didn't seem like it was a _lot_ of time that was still missing, maybe a couple of weeks at best, but enough to keep them from knowing much more about who was behind this than the survivors. There were a couple of things they had figured out, like they could pass through doors but not walls or any other solid objects. They couldn't sleep, they hadn't figured out how to communicate with the living, if there was a way, and there were concerns about _both_ of the twins.

It took Mondo a minute to realize what they meant. Mukuro hadn't been around since the entire ordeal began. Why hadn't she been involved in this sick game? Was she all right? And Junko had been killed around the same time Sayaka and Leon died, but her ghost wasn't with them in the elevator – had she stayed behind on the upper floors of the school? "So . . . where are the twins, anyways?" asked Mondo.

"We don't know," said Leon. "Junko's ghost never showed up as far as we know."

Mondo had mixed feeling about that. During their first year at Hope's Peak, he and Junko had a "thing." They weren't exactly dating per se as using each other to blow off some steam (Junko liked bad boys, Mondo wasn't about to turn down the chance to bed a super model), and for a while that arrangement worked.

And then it got _weird_.

"Have you ever wondered what human flesh tastes like?" had been the start of it. They'd met in her room, and she asked him the question. Mondo hadn't been sure how to respond and said it was a weird thing to say, but then she started coming up with other bizarre, creepy anecdotes. Not long after that he found her cutting out pictures of other models from magazines and posting them on her wall without their heads. An entire wall of her dorm room was just a giant, creepy collage of headless models. He finally called it quits when he found her getting "off" to videos of dog fighting rings caught on tape.

Something was _wrong_ with that woman. So not spending eternity with her didn't bother him.

But not dealing with his crazy ex was the least of his problems. He was mostly worried about Kiyotaka. He was still horribly shaken up, though at least he'd stopped wailing. Still, his expression was vacant and he wasn't talking with the other students at all. Hagakure was trying get through to him, but it wasn't working. If he was doing this badly, there was no one left alive who could help him. Maybe he or Chihiro could have helped but they were . . .

Mondo swallowed. _Dead._

Chihiro was standing next to Kiyotaka, speaking softly to him. Of course he didn't hear her – no matter how broken he was he'd _probably_ still acknowledge one of the ghosts talking to him, right? She was trying to tell him to be strong – he needed to survive this so if the world did get better he'd be able to help rebuild Japan, and then he'd be able to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming the Prime Minister.

Leon finished untying Mondo just as they reached the first floor of the school and everyone shuffled out. Kiyotaka made a beeline for the dorms, brushing past everyone without saying a word. Hagakure and Aoi tried to stop him, but weren't able to catch up to him before he had holed himself up in his room and locked the door.

Ghosts did not have this obstacle, so Mondo and Chihiro invited themselves into Kiyotaka's room. Sayaka and Leon decided it was best to stay out of this one and patiently waited outside for the other two to check up on their hurting friend. They found him sitting at his desk, crying into his folded arms at his desk.

"What are we going to do?" asked Chihiro.

"I . . . I don't know," he said. "I don't want to leave him alone like this."

"Me, neither," Chihiro said.

Mondo looked at the door to Kiyotaka's dorm room – Leon and Sayaka were probably still waiting for them. "I . . . I can't leave him here like this," he said. Chihiro looked at him with a frown on her face. "I know, I know, he can't see me or hear me but . . . I just can't." He sat down on Kiyotaka's bed (it was strange – still soft, but wouldn't bend to his weight – probably because he didn't have any anymore) and put his head in his hands. "I did this to him."

"No you didn't!" Chihiro took a seat next to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face into his shoulder. "It's a bad situation . . . everyone knows that. We're all victims here – not just me or Sayaka or you or Leon or Junko. Everyone trapped in this school is just as much a victim and we all are."

Mondo wished he could believe her. "Let's stay with him tonight. Maybe he can feel us or something and maybe it'll help." Chihiro looked at him like she didn't think it would work, but she nodded before politely excusing herself to let Leon and Sayaka in on their plan.

* * *

"MONDO! GREAT NEWS!"

It was a few hours later – Kiyotaka still wasn't asleep, but Leon had come bursting into his room. Mondo and Chihiro were sitting on the side of his bed, still quietly trying to determine if there was anything either of them could do. They turned their attention to the ballplayer, who looked crestfallen when his eyes laid on Chihiro. "Leon?"

"Chihiro . . . have you been in here the whole time?" he asked sullenly.

"Yeah, why?" asked Chihiro.

Leon lowered his head. "Aoi thought she saw your ghost and I thought . . ."

Mondo was on his feet. "She saw Chihiro?"

"Well . . . if she's been in here the whole time then probably not," said Leon, "but she just came shrieking back from somewhere else about Chihiro's ghost – she's holed up in her room right now, terrified." He crossed his arms. "I thought maybe you'd taken a walk or something and she saw you and maybe she can see us now or something . . ."

Sayaka's head and part of her upper body came through the door. "Asahina didn't see Chihiro – she found Alter Ego in the bathhouse. The laptop must be on a sensor or something because it turned on when she walked by and, and it's still on in there." She turned to Chihiro. "They'll probably investigate tomorrow and find Alter Ego. Good job, Chihiro!"

"Alter Ego? That artificial intelligence thing you were working on?" Mondo asked.

"Oh! Oh yes!" said Chihiro. She turned to Mondo with a smile and told him about her recreation of the program, and how she'd set her up to search the laptop she was on for anything that might help everyone escape. "It's too late to help the four of us and Junko, but if we can get everyone else out of here . . . even the outside world is better than in here right now, isn't it?"

Mondo sighed. "Yeah, but if they don't remember what outside is like right now, that's going to do even more harm than good," he said. "No one has anything to live for outside – maybe Naegi's little sister and assuming nothing happened to Oogami's dojo, that's _it. _For _everyone_. After everything we've gone through already, after everything they've gone through and are going to continue going through until someone rescues them or they find a way out . . . what then?"

"You're worried about Kiyotaka," said Sayaka, now standing in the room next to Leon.

"Well, look at him!" said Mondo. He hung his hand and grabbed the sides of his head. "I didn't just kill Chihiro – I've killed him, too! I made the game progress – I wasn't strong enough to deal with Monokuma and now I . . ."

Chihiro stood before him and grasped the collar of his jacket. "Mondo, please stop."

"Chihiro, I _fucking killed you! Why are you being so nice to me!?_"

"Because I told you! It's not you! It's Monokuma!" she yelled, shaking him a little (which shocked Mondo – sure she had a lot of emotional strength but she did _not_ have a lick of physical strength and he was not easily moved). She clenched her eyes shut. "I heard what you said to me after you moved my body into the girl's locker room."

"Y, you did?" he asked.

"Every word," said Chihiro. "When I died Leon and Sayaka were around and trying to help me with what happened and we saw you switching the crime scene around. At first we thought you were just trying to get away with it because you saw what happened to Leon, but . . . I saw how you left my body. And what you said. And I started crying," she said, pressing her hand to his chest, "that somewhere inside, even if you didn't remember, you were trying to protect me."

Mondo's expression melted. She was right. It was like something in him had remembered. Something in him remembered that Chihiro was one of his best friends, and having her secret exposed would have destroyed her – even if she was dead, even if he was the one who'd killed her . . . he was always her big brother. He pulled her into a bear hug, squeezing her tight. "I'll never, ever hurt you again, Chihiro," he said. "Never."

"I know."

* * *

Everyone but Kiyotaka found Alter Ego the next day, and it went fairly well. They were going to be smart about not visiting the laptop if it wasn't necessary and the little AI was allowed to keep scanning her laptop for information. Chihiro was rewarded with a group hug from the other ghosts and several congratulatory slaps on the back for a job well done.

Unfortunately their celebration was short lived. Monokuma summoned everyone to the gym.

"Great, what's Evil Winnie the Pooh want now?" Mondo grumbled as the ghosts headed to the gym as well. They might as well be prepared to see what might or might not kill another of their classmates. "Tch. What's it going to be this time? Maybe he's got a giant pile of money that he's going to offer them if they kill someone."

It was a giant pile of money. Ten billion yen, to be exact.

Mondo was slightly amused he was right – he wasn't crazy that another motive had cropped up, but this seemed like one that wouldn't actually trigger another killing. "Well, that's a relief – I don't think anyone here will kill for money. Celes and Togami both have way more than that stashed away and while Hagakure is hurting for it, I think he's just smart enough to know he isn't smart enough to get past Naegi and Kirigiri."

"So then who does Monokuma think will cave to that kind of motive?" asked Leon.

* * *

The following night, something awful happened.

Well, it looked like it was going to be something good at first. For the first time since Mondo's execution, Kiyotaka had spoken to someone – he'd sought out Naegi for something. Mondo and Chihiro hadn't been close enough to hear what (Kiyotaka was still not his usual, um, "not quiet" self) but soon enough Naegi was leading him somewhere, a look of relief on his face. Mondo and Chihiro exchanged the same look – even if they weren't going to be all right, at least one of them was going to be all right.

Or so they thought.

Kiyotaka had asked to be taken to Alter Ego (or at least that's what they assumed – they'd run into Kirigiri and Naegi told her something else, but then took him to the bathhouse). That went against the rules about seeing the laptop when not necessary, but it seemed as if Naegi was ignoring the rule what looked like the prefect's best interests at the time. Alter Ego greeted him kindly, instantly recognizing him and greeting him kindly, just as she was apt to greet any of the students.

Kiyotaka asked Alter Ego if he forgave Mondo for killing her.

Mondo was shocked. Kiyotaka hadn't had anything to do with Chihiro's death. Why the hell would he think he was to blame? "He's . . . asking me for forgiveness?" Chihiro asked incredulously. "Well . . . asking Alter Ego for my forgiveness on your behalf?" She shook her head. "Is that why he's been upset the past couple of days? He blames himself for my death?"

"That doesn't make any sense," said Mondo.

By now, Alter Ego had taken an interesting course of action. Instead of using a digital image of Chihiro's head for its avatar, it had switched to one of Mondo. The program was using the new avatar, complete with a very good approximation of his voice, to give Kiyotaka a pep talk about being a man and how it was okay for him to be upset and the burdens of a man . . . something to that effect.

"That's . . . not too far off from what I might have said," Mondo muttered.

Chihiro blushed. "I do my best."

But then that "something awful" happened.

Kiyotaka started to act strange, talking about how he could feel "his" spirit, how his body was absorbing him, and something about him seemed to be glowing. Naegi stepped back, more than a little scared (as were Mondo and Chihiro – what were they watching, exactly?). Kiyotaka declared that he was absorbing "him" and their bodies were becoming one, and all anyone in the room could do, alive or dead, was watch in abject horror.

"Uh . . . what's he doing?" asked Chihiro.

" . . . I have no idea," said Mondo.

Something was very, very wrong. Kiyotaka's hair was suddenly white, and his eyebrows looked like they were aflame. It was almost as if there was a strange glow about him, and the ghosts could only watch in horror. Was this some kind of supernatural occurrence? What was happening to their dear friend? Naegi looked concerned, but when he asked if he was all right, Kiyotaka simply snapped that "Ishimaru" was gone and that he was "ME" before running off.

"KYOUDAI!" Mondo screamed. He took off after Kiyotaka, horrified at what he was seeing.

Kiyotaka had completely snapped.

* * *

It wasn't until the next day that they actually figured out what had happened . . .

. . . or at least what Kiyotaka "thought" had happened.

It was prompted by the survivors gathering in the bathhouse because of a mistake one of them had made. Sometime after the incident with Kiyotaka in the bathhouse, Yamada had let himself in and spent the night talking freely with Alter Ego about his various obsessions and had . . . developed feelings for the AI.

"Aw, Chihiro, I think Yamada's going to make a GREAT son in law," Leon had teased.

Chihiro frowned. "I don't think this is a laughing matter, Leon."

"What's the worry? The current motive is kind of bogus so for the moment everyone's safe and let's be honest – Yamada falling in love with a computer is _funny_. I'm dead and eternally trapped in a school, so I'm going to take _any_ laugh that comes my way right now, thank you very much." He held his hands up and formed a rectangle with his index fingers and thumb. "I think the laptop would look adorable in a little veil. The others could get Yamada a top hat, it'll be real classy."

"Leon . . . no," said Sayaka.

But then Kiyotaka had burst in and declared that "Kyoudai" was his. When asked what he was talking about, he screamed that he wasn't "Ishimaru," but he was the combination of "Ishimaru" and . . . "Oowada". He declared that he was now "Ishida," and if he still had a stomach Mondo was pretty sure it would be churning.

"He thinks he's me, or that my ghost is possessing him or something," said Mondo.

Sayaka raised an eyebrow at him. "You didn't, did you?"

"What? _NO!_"

". . . positive?"

"_SAYAKA! I DIDN'T POSSESS ANYONE!_"

Naegi explained to the other survivors what had happened the night before. Even if it seemed like it had been a good idea at the time, letting Kiyotaka talk to Alter Ego had done something to him. All it did was make Mondo feel even worse than before. Killing Chihiro, sending Kiyotaka into a tailspin, and now this? He wanted to be sick.

* * *

The bars in front of the trash room counted as something ghost's couldn't pass through, so Mondo settled for sulking just outside of the incinerator chamber. After all, he was garbage, and this was where garbage belonged, right? He'd ruined two lives – Chihiro's was over, and Kiyotaka . . . was there even a way to help him now? Maybe if the world wasn't over there'd be some sort of doctor of shrink or someone who could do something but . . . all those people were probably gone or hard to find now. Not that they could help him while he was trapped inside the school anyways.

Chihiro, Leon, and Sayaka found him sometime later but he told them to leave him alone. They eventually did, and he spent a long time there. He didn't want to move, and not having to eat or use the bathroom or any made that a lot easier. He heard the night time announcement, followed by a morning announcement.

Sometime after the morning announcement he felt hands on his shoulder. "Mondo, we've got a problem!" she said.

"Why are you asking me?" he asked.

"Alter Ego's gone."

Mondo looked up at Chihiro in shock. "Wait, what?"

"She disappeared last night. Kirigiri checked on her this morning but she wasn't in the bathhouse." Chihiro looked completely crestfallen. Alter Ego had been what she'd put all of her hope into and what everyone's hopes had been riding on since her discovery. She might be the only thing that could get the living students out of the school, so with her gone missing . . .

"Do you guys know where she went?"

"No idea – we checked Kiyotaka and Yamada's rooms."

Mondo raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

Chihiro sat down. "Oh, right, you missed that. Um . . . they got into a nasty fight over Alter Ego yesterday after you ran off. It got bad enough that Kirigiri ordered her to scream if either of them got close to her unsupervised, but right now? No one can find her. Neither of them are claiming responsibility but . . . Mondo, this is really bad."

"Yeah . . . it is," he said. "Do you need me to-?"

Mondo was cut off by a low, gurgling growl. The ghost froze and turned to the source of the growling – it was coming from down the hall, near the bathrooms. "That doesn't sound like anything that's been in the school," said Chihiro. Mondo nodded in agreement and got to his feet. He ushered Chihiro behind him and crept towards the bathrooms, wishing he'd had a knife or something on him when he died. Not that he was sure it would do any good, but he would have felt a lot better with one.

The profile of a wolf with midnight black fur crept out from around the corner. It's visible eye was red and swollen, and foamy pink drool was oozing from its muzzle between yellowing teeth. It spotted them and turned its head, revealing the left half of its body was white as snow. It turned to face them, and the ghosts froze in fear.

This wolf . . . was just like Monokuma. Half white, half black. Half hope, half despair.

". . . what the hell is that?" asked Mondo.

"I . . . I don't know," said Chihiro.

The wolf crouched, readying itself to pounce.

"Let's not hang around to find out!" Mondo yelled. He picked up Chihiro, threw her over his shoulder, and ran.

* * *

DING DANG DING DONG! Author's Announcements!

EDIT: Minor edit to fix a plot hole. I was relatively happy with this one otherwise.

Next chapter is going to break from the current pattern we have going, though I'm not sure exactly which direction to take it in. I'll figure it out.

Song choice: "Mad World". Now there's actually a couple of versions of this song I'm aware of – one by an 80's band called Tears for Fears, and the Gary Jules version, which is heavily associated with the film _Donnie Darko_. The one I had on rotation was the Gary Jules version, though I PROBABLY have that Tears for Fears album SOMEWHERE.

Dixxy


	6. La La La

Haunted

By Dixxy Mouri

Chapter Five: La La La

* * *

_6:00 pm_

* * *

Alter Ego . . . was missing.

To say Sayaka looked a little upset was an understatement, and Leon wished there was something he could do to cheer her up. She'd placed all of her hope on that laptop, but now it was missing and . . . that was downright depressing. Alter Ego was the other student's only hope of survival, so without that laptop they were doomed. Doomed to keep playing this killing game until only one of them was left, and then that one person would "graduate" and find out what had happened to the outside world and realize they were all alone . . .

It was almost too much.

"I'm sure they'll figure out what happened," said Leon. The two were sitting in the locker room outside the bath house to get a change of scenery – it was really one of the only reasons to "be" anywhere anymore, seeing as things like sleeping and eating were lost to them. Mondo had decided to sulk by the trash room for the past several hours (probably close to a whole day at this point) and Chihiro had gone to check on him again. Kiyotaka's transformation had freaked all of them out, as it was the worst breakdown anyone had suffered without committing a murder.

_Yet._

Leon wondered if, in this broken mental state, Kiyotaka actually was capable of killing someone. The _real_ Kiyotaka? Hell no. He was absolutely of the mindset that the best course of action would have been to wait for rescue or find an escape route that didn't involve killing another student. Following the rules was his _thing_ – he didn't drink, he didn't date (though that one wasn't due to a lack of interest – Kiyotaka had a PAINFULLY obvious crush on one of the girls in their class), he was never late to class, none of that. He wouldn't kill anyone.

But a stressed out Kiyotaka who believed he was being possessed by the ghost of the leader of a violent biker gang? Maybe. Maybe _that_ version of Kiyotaka would soil the pristine white uniform he was so proud of. Leon didn't like the idea – he didn't like the idea of _any_ of his classmates getting blood on their hands. It was bad enough Sayaka had tried and he and Mondo had actually done it – he just wanted it to stop.

"Leon . . . what if this is linked to another murder?" she asked.

"Huh?" he asked. Sayaka had a melancholy air about her, and Leon felt himself go a little colder than he already was. "Why? Alter Ego is trying to help them escape – why would taking her out of the picture make any sense? They need her to get out of here. Maybe . . . maybe Monokuma found it and he took off with her." Well, _that_ wasn't a happy thought. Monkuma finding Alter Ego would have been a complete disaster.

"I . . . I don't know . . . but Kiyotaka and Hifumi got into a nasty fight over her . . . I mean, I don't know how that would work but . . . it looks like everyone's falling apart. If they keep getting into fights like this no one is going to be left, and I don't want everyone to die," she said. She clenched her fists. "How horrible would it be if the next reason someone killed didn't have anything to do with that money? That it was something one of us started?"

Leon nearly felt ill. "The bear would just love that, wouldn't he?" he said. He scoffed, but took a seat next to Sayaka. "We need to have faith that the others are going to find a way out of this, okay?" He squeezed her hand – it was cold, like it always was now, but they were all getting used to the sensation of touch lacking a sense of warm. Leon was starting to say something else when his eye caught something glowing from inside one of the lockers.

"Leon?" Sayaka asked.

"Is that . . ." Leon stood and crept closer the locker. Wondering if the door of a locker was one of the things they could pass through, he tried to stick his face in. It worked, but just barely – he couldn't move through the rest of the structure, but he could get enough of his head in to see Alter Ego quietly waiting inside of the locker, still analyzing her laptop. "I found her! I found Alter Ego!"

"You did!?" asked Sayaka, who virtually materialized at his side as soon as she'd heard.

Leon stepped away and nodded. "She didn't go very far – she's just been in a different locker."

Sayaka stuck her face into the locker to confirm this. Something about her posture showed that she was happy at first, but then her shoulders sank as she pulled away and looked at him with a frown on her face. "I can see that but . . . well, why? Why would they just move her like this? Wouldn't someone take her to their room?"

"Not with all the cameras in the dorms – it might not make the other students wise to what happened, but it would alert the bear," said Leon. "None of the laptops in the library were working, so no one should have any kind of interest in one of them – he'd get suspicious if someone was using one, don't you think?"

"Chihiro fixed the one Alter Ego is on," said Sayaka.

"Yeah, but computers are her thing – he wouldn't be surprised if she was trying to get one to work, either to pass the time or, well, maybe incorporate it into a murder, I guess. Besides, she's dead now and Monokuma might not think she's a threat anymore," said Leon. "Although she kind of is – as long as Alter Ego is around, Chihiro's got a hand in the outcome of this whole situation."

"Yeah . . ." said Sayaka. "But I still want to know why she's in there."

"Kirigiri probably moved her so no one else would," said Leon, starting to move towards the hallway. He didn't quite believe himself, and he was sure Sayaka knew he didn't, either – sure Kirigiri had been really secretive since the ordeal started, but something that everyone already knew about? Why would she hide that? "She probably lied about it to cover her tracks and keep everyone from looking in the other lockers – if everyone thinks Alter Ego was stolen they'll look everywhere else first, right? Why would a thief keep the object in the same room?"

Sayaka thought about this for a second, and then raised her index finger to make a point. "Well, haven't you heard of hiding something in plain sight?" she asked, following him. Leon raised an eyebrow, not getting it. "Mystery writers have their characters do it all the time, so whoever moved Alter Ego probably got the idea from there."

Leon laughed. "Well that sounds like a terrible place to hide something."

"Oh really? Let's say someone stole an autographed Babe Ruth baseball – would anyone look for it in a bin with the extra balls a team used for practice? Of course not – it would blend in with the other balls and everyone would assume it was just like the rest and start looking through lockers or offices or backpacks or something."

"Huh. That's really smart, Sayaka," said Leon.

"Well, no offense, but I was always the brains of our little operation," she said sweetly.

Chuckling, Leon put his arm around her. "I can't argue with that."

Sayaka rested her head on his shoulder. "You had the passion, though."

"I thought you were the one who found the condoms in the nurse's office-"

Sayaka blushed. "I wasn't talking about _that_," she said. "You were the romantic one, I mean."

"That _lead_ to romance."

". . . it did, but that's not what I meant. You're the one who loved the big, romantic gestures. Like, if we'd gotten to a point where we were going to get engaged, you would have come up with something stupidly elaborate, and I would have yelled at you for spending all that money on the setup, whatever it was."

Leon paused, swallowing. "I, um, not that it matters but . . . what would have you have said?"

"You mean would I have accepted a marriage proposal from you?"

Leon paled. For a moment, he'd forgotten where they were and how they'd gotten there. He'd forgotten they were dead, because for a fleeting moment things were the way they used to be, just the two of them talking, but it had all come crashing back down around him as memories of the night of Sayaka's murder and the afternoon of his execution came flooding back to him. "I . . . I'm sorry."

"For what?"  
"We shouldn't be talking about stuff like this," he said. "Since . . . we can't, you know?"

Sayaka hugged him, squeezing him tightly until he returned the embrace. "I . . . I know. But probably should talk about things like this. We died young – we should be mourning the lives we didn't get to lead. And . . . our future as a couple would have been a part of those lives," she said.

They stood in the hallway in silence for several moments. The embrace was still cold, but neither of them wanted to let go. It wasn't something they'd talked about yet, before or after they'd died. The closest they'd gotten to discussing their future as a couple had been when they'd been channel surfing one day and found some American movie about brides, and Sayaka had commented she thought the dress was ugly and when she got married she wanted to pick out something prettier.

"I . . . I thought this conversation was supposed to be happy . . ."

"I wish I hadn't asked. I've hurt you enough – I don't want to hurt you anymore. Not ever."

"I'm not sorry you brought it up.

Leon was surprised by this. "Sayaka . . . I know we keep saying we're sorry, but I _killed_ you."

"And I tried to kill you, too."

"So where does that leave us?"

They didn't have an answer for each other.

"_RUN!_"

Leon and Sayaka turned to see Mondo running straight for them, Chihiro over his shoulder. Temporarily forgetting their heart to heart, the idol singer started yelling. "Mondo, what the hell are you doing!? Put her down this instant!" Sayaka insisted. "This is no time for whatever the hell the two of you are doing-"

That was when the wolf creature came into sight. It was a little larger than a normal wolf (or at least Leon guessed it was – it had been a while since he'd seen one, and even then that had been at a zoo), but that wasn't what was scary about it. No, the beast had a body very similar to Monokuma's – the right half of its body looked almost like a normal wolf, except white, but the left half was pitch black and sporting a pulsating, bloody red gash for an eye.

"I STAND CORRECTED! DON'T PUT HER DOWN AND KEEP RUNNING!" The ghosts screamed and bolted towards the dorms, the wolf skittering on the tile floor as it struggled to make the turn, but was soon scampering after them, howling and snarling and growling in pursuit of its prey.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING!?" Leon yelled.

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW! IT JUST SHOWED UP!" Mondo yelled.

Chihiro, who was being carried in such a manner than she could see everything behind Mondo, was screaming shrilly as she clung on for dear life. She was no athlete and had she not been carried, she would have easily fallen behind and fallen victim to whatever that wolf wanted with them.

"Do we even know if it can hurt us?!" Sayaka asked.

"_DO YOU REALLY WANT TO TEST THAT THEORY?!"_ Mondo called back.

The ghosts led the wolf in circles around the dorms – past the trash room, past the dorms, past the laundry room, and past the trash room again and again and again. On one pass Leon noticed Yamada heading somewhere, but by his non-reaction to the wolf it seemed as if this creature was the ghosts' problem and theirs alone. _Well, at least we don't have to worry about the others being eaten by this thing – just US being eaten by this thing!_

"WE ARE ACCOMPLISHING NOTHING!" Sayaka screamed.

"WELL WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO!?" Mondo yelled back.

"ANYTHING THAT'S ACTUALLY GOING TO GET RID OF THIS THING!"

"_HE'S GAINING ON US!_" Chihiro shrieked.

Leon turned his head. The wolf was _terrible_ at banking turns, and he watched it crash into Asahina's door. He looked straight ahead again, afraid of falling behind and getting caught by the beast. _We can't keep this up forever . . . we still get tired . . . we won't be able to do this much longer . . . what now, what now, what now!?_

It was then that he got an epiphany, and for the first time in, well, maybe ever, Leon felt like a genius. "I'VE GOT AN IDEA! FOLLOW ME!" Leon yelled. He veered away from their current pattern and headed for the dormitory exit, checking to make sure Sayaka and Mondo were following him – they were, but didn't seem to know what he had planned.

They raced down the halls, passing by the first floor classrooms and the AV room. As they passed the entrance to the courtroom elevators and the infirmary (_Good, we're almost there! Just a little bit more and we're home free! _Leon had thought to himself), Mondo started yelling around. "WHERE ARE WE GOING?!"

"GYM!" said Leon. "JUST TRUST ME, I THINK THIS'LL WORK!" They banked right past the first floor bathrooms and headed into the trophy room. The doors to the gym, just like Leon had wanted, were closed. _Bingo! Let's hope this works!_ "HANG A RIGHT AS SOON AS YOU GET IN THE GYM AND DON'T STOP RUNNING UNTIL IT'S SAFE!"

"WHAT?!" Sayaka asked.

The ghosts passed through the gym doors . . . but the wolf crashed into them, howling and clawing at the door, unable to get through the barrier. The ghosts slowed to a stop, those who had been running bending over to catch their breath . . . or at least something that resembled "catching their breath", seeing as none of them were actually "breathing" anymore. Leon wasn't sure if it was a reflex or something else, but what was important was that they were inside the room and the wolf was not.

"How did you know it couldn't pass through doors?" asked Sayaka.

"It crashed into Asahina's door during one our laps in the dorms," said Leon. He sat down, still shaking from what had just happened. "We needed a big room with a door in case I was wrong so we wouldn't lose momentum and be able to keep running. Any other room on this floor and we would have been screwed."

"Maybe, but now we're stuck in here," said Mondo.

"And it's stuck out there – we don't have a way of fighting that thing off so we have to wait for it to get bored or something and leave," said Leon. "But now at least we know it's confined to the halls so if we see it or one of its friends, we know how to avoid them."

"Its 'friends'? You think there's _more_ of them?" Sayaka asked in horror.

"W, we can't rule out the possibility," said Chihiro. "We don't know what that thing is!"

"Or why it looks like Monokuma," said Mondo. "Isn't the bear a robot?"

". . . yeah?" Leon asked, not sure where he was going with this.

"Well, whatever that wolf thing is, it isn't man made like Monokuma – it's some sort of spirit creature, like us. So why do they look so similar?" he asked. "That thing is some sort of demon or ghost or monster – not a robot. No one else can see it but the four of us, and just like us it can't do anything with the stuff in the living world so no one's going to find mysterious claw marks or something. So, again – how is it that the mastermind behind all of this was able to design a robot teddy bear that looks like a real ghost/demon/monster/whatever-the-fuck-that-thing-is if they couldn't have possibly seen one before?"

It was a solid point, and added yet another mystery to their whole situation – now on top of trying to figuring out who was behind this and what was going on in the land of the living, the ghosts had a problem of their own. What was that thing, and how and why did it look like Monokuma? The ghosts exchanged a worried look. It seemed as if they weren't as alone in the school as they originally thought they were after all.

And as luck would have it, they were about to have a long time to think it over.

* * *

_10:05 pm_

* * *

While the ghosts were trapped in the gym, two of the living students found notes had been slipped under their doors. Even if Alter Ego was missing, someone had possibly found a way out of the school – all they needed to do was stay quiet, not talk with the others about it in the open, and meet everyone at the designated time and place.

Hagakure burned his note, having committed it to memory.

"Ishida" stuffed it carelessly in his pocket – that is what Kyoudai would have done, he believed.

Neither of them knew that three more lives would be lost in less than twenty four hours.

* * *

_2:00 am_

* * *

Mukuro hadn't known what to do with herself since she'd died, except for one thing: hide.

It had been bad enough Junko had decided to kill her – it was the only explanation for what had happened after Mukuro played her part following the murder of Sayaka Maizono. But when? Had she done something wrong during those first five days? Was she failing to live up to her baby sister's expectations again?

Not there was anything unusual about that. As long as Mukuro could remember, she'd never been good enough for Junko. She'd tried to her hardest to bring her despair, but the only despair she could bring her was disappointment. It was never sad of devastating enough for her twin. Joining the army so she might be killed in combat hadn't worked. Being dateless for school dances and being miserable and alone in her dorm room hadn't worked. No amount of misery Mukuro put herself through was enough to satisfy Junko.

Not even helping her end the world . . . not even setting in motion the events that had so far killed four of their classmates had been enough in the end. Even after she'd died she felt like she had the blood of Sayaka Maizono, Leon Kuwata, Chihiro Fujisaki, and Mondo Oowada on her hands. And she wondered how much dirtier they were going to get.

But that didn't change her current predicament. Not long after her demise, she realized she wasn't the only restless spirit wandering the halls of Hope's Peak Academy. She spotted the ghost of Sayaka Maizono amongst the living students who had been, at the time, investigating her murder, and she quickly made herself scarce.

Mukuro wasn't ready to face any of the other students yet.

And it had been a hell of a challenge to keep from getting spotted, especially once Maizono wasn't alone anymore. Kuwata hadn't been a challenge to contend with – apparently death had restored her classmates' memories (which was another reason to avoid them) and the lovebirds had apparently forgiven each other, so they usually weren't too far apart and avoiding one meant avoiding the other.

Fujisaki's death and Oowada's execution had proved MUCH trickier. While the four of them did spend a lot of time together, there were more of them and it was more likely they're split off from each other, so she'd needed to keep an even better eye out. At first it hadn't been too bad since they'd been following around the third member of their little trio (the dorky prefect), who (for the moment) still had a heartbeat in his chest, but once he'd lost his final marble and decided he had absorbed the biker like some sort of "ghost sponge" they hadn't been a keen on that anymore. Not because they'd stopped caring – on the contrary, it was evident that seeing him like that was painful for them.

This evening, Mukuro had stayed on the third floor – there was some sort of commotion on the first floor amongst the four dead students that she'd decided to avoid (there'd been a lot of screaming, whatever it was) and this gave her sufficient distance from the unpleasantness. And meant she could stave off having to see any of them.

How could she, after all? Despite how much Junko told her that she shouldn't like being happy or having hope, she really did enjoy spending time with her classmates and, well, she decided feeling that way wasn't so bad. It hadn't been so fun at first with all of the fighting and awkwardness, but eventually the sixteen of them – even her and Junko – had formed a social group that, at any other school, wouldn't have existed. Some of them might have been friends in other settings, sure, but some of them wouldn't have so much as given the time of day to some of the others. The poor met the wealthy. The squeaky clean met the rough around the edges. The quiet met the loud, and masters of the human body met masters of the human brain.

Despite the dirty looks Junko would shoot her, Mukuro found herself enjoying their company. Over time she discovered they all had their nice sides, and they were all learning a lot about each other. They readily accepted her, and even Junko, as one of them. They were invited to parties or to go out with the others on day trips or even just to sit and eat lunch with someone in the cafeteria. Togami invited everyone to enjoy the luxuries he had (the "small boat" his family owned had _two pools_). They went to Kuwata's games and Asahina's swim meets. Maizono got them front row seats to concerts and music shows.

It was amazing. Sure, Junko was invited to fashion shows all the time, but she never invited Mukuro. The idea that someone might want to invite her to go somewhere was practically a foreign concept to her, and she'd been shocked the first few times it had happened. Sure, once a lot of the tension those first few weeks had died down, people were trying to get to know each other so their conversation partners were rather indiscriminate so they were talking to everyone . . . but that included her. She found herself having real conversations with people who weren't her sister. She'd never really had that before. In Fenrir it was all about the mission, with some of the men talking about their sexual conquests or their girls back home (. . . and sometimes both at the same time, which made Mukuro sick). They weren't always terribly deep conversations – a lot of introductions, trying to find common ground, that sort of thing, but eventually those deeper, meaningful interactions happened. That was when she started getting invited to things – her classmates, it seemed, wanted to get to know her better.

Mukuro had never felt wanted before.

"_Tch. They're probably just using you for something, Muku-chan. Like getting in good with me._"

Well, maybe that was true . . . Junko was a super model, after all. She had influence – not real power (well, not until after the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident, anyways) but she could get places where most people couldn't with a wink and a smile. Sure, she wasn't the most influential of their classmates (that person had to be Togami, hands down), but she was up there. Mukuro wasn't that kind of person – she took orders, she didn't give them. What would she do with that kind of influence, anyways?

But wasn't just friends Mukuro wondered about. What if one of the boys would ask her to one of the dances or out on a date – what was that like? She'd seem couples before and they always looked so happy . . . except for that one time Junko dated Oowada. She'd lured him in with the promise of sex with a super model (which, to be fair, she'd delivered on – she'd caught him in her sister's room in various states of undress), and then proceeded to invent all sorts of things to mess with his head. She'd been _ecstatic_ when he finally dumped her over the dog fighting videos on the Internet. Mukuro had thought that was going too far – you couldn't tell by just looking at him, but the guy had a soft spot for animals, especially dogs. She was glad it ended when it did – not that she thought Oowada would make a bad brother-in-law, because he really wouldn't, but because he didn't really deserve the treatment Junko would have given him if she became the ball attached to the end of his chain.

But, well, maybe she could have love one day – real love, not whatever it was Junko did when she dated. There were other boys in their class, and most of them were single, and they all had their strong points and weak points. The only two who Mukuro really considered off the table were Oowada (since it would probably be a bit awkward to date him after what Junko had done) and Kuwata (since he was already involved with Maizono, despite Junko's best efforts to try and cause a despair inducing breakup between the two). That left Naegi, Ishimaru, Yamada, Hagakure, and Togami. Ishimaru could be a bit TOO invested in the school rules sometimes, but he was genuine, honest, and a hard worker – Mukuro respected that. Togami was rich and gorgeous, but tended to be an asshole if he didn't consider you part of his inner circle (which, by the time the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happened everyone in their class had that dubious status, though Mukuro wasn't sure why Togami would want someone like her around). Hagakure was cheerful and fun loving, but often smelled like pot and she had reservations about someone his age still being in high school. Yamada was passionate about what he did and was so sincere in his enjoyment that it was hard to find fault with it, but he was horribly awkward – getting better, but still horribly awkward (then again so were some of the other boys so it wasn't a unique flaw).

But there was something about Naegi that made her heart sing, and it had all started with a smile. She wasn't sure why – he was small and wiry, not the kind of man she figured she would be attracted to, and much younger looking than most of the other boys, but he consumed more of her thoughts than she would readily admit to anyone but Junko. He was so sweet, so kind, so hopeful about everything. That optimism and happiness was so different from what she was used to. He was like an enigma to her, some sort of forbidden fruit that Junko would never allow her to taste.

Of course he seemed to have an interest in the Super High School Level Detective, so it appeared that this wasn't meant to be. This . . . didn't bother Mukuro as much as she thought it was supposed to. Seeing Naegi happy was enough for her, and if he thought he could find happiness with Kyouko Kirigiri, well, she didn't want to make him unhappy by denying him that, as much as Junko might think the alternative was preferable. Perhaps it was because she was too scared or too shy to approach him on the subject, or didn't think she was good enough for him, but she was content to admire him from afar.

Junko thought it gave her despair. It really didn't. Even if it meant she couldn't have him, the thought of Naegi being happy was all right with her. She wouldn't quite describe the emotion as "happy" or "hopeful" so much as "content". There was something sincere and pure about his kindness and happiness – something Mukuro didn't have. That was why she clung to her virginity – it was the only "purity" she had that remained. The only good, clean thing about her. Naegi radiated those things, and Mukuro was drawn to them like a moth to a flame.

Sometimes Mukuro wondered if any of them would approach her and ask her if she'd like to have dinner with them, or see if she was available for a school dance. She would have preferred Naegi, but really, all of them had their good points and she decided she would give any of the others a chance. Hagakure was fun, Togami was classy, Ishimaru was earnest, Yamada was empassioned, Oowada was protective, Kuwata was loyal . . . they were all good boys on track to becoming better men.

"_Not that anyone would be interested in someone as plain as you, Muku-chan!"_

Junko was probably right about that . . . she was kind of plain and boring. That had been good when she was a soldier - not standing out was one of the things that made a good soldier, and her most distinctive features were her freckles (which weren't a terribly distinctive feature – lots of people had them). She was relatively flat chested, dressed simply, kept her hair neat and short, and was very much the type to melt into a crowd, almost as if she wasn't even there. Of course she wouldn't be asked out on a date. Of course no one wanted to take her any of the dances. She usually spent the dances alone in her dorm room doing homework.

Which was disappointing, because she had discovered she really liked dancing. Mukuro was used to moving in time with military drummers from her years as a soldier, but there was always something very impersonal and mechanical about those movements. Dancing was similar, but much more freeing and natural. She would practice alone, using videos on the internet or books from the library to teach herself.

Eventually Maizono caught on and gave her some lessons, and she'd learned a lot from her career as an idol singer over the month or two they'd had their arrangement. Little by little a few of the other girls joined their lessons (and on rare occasion, one or two of the boys –Yamada had been there once and _schooled everyone_ – apparently you COULD learn to dance using those blasted Dance Dance Revolution machines). They mostly focused on popular dances, though they did a few others – Celes had brought roses for the tango, and Togami secured access to a ballroom and a four piece string ensemble for the waltz.

Eventually, one of the other girls got the idea that they should all do a girls night out – one of the local dance clubs had a dry night so minors could attend. This had been exciting to her at first, but someone had invited Junko . . . and she'd accepted. Mukuro knew she needed to be careful – it was only her little sister's disinterest in the dance lessons that kept her from finding out about her involvement with the dance lessons, but at some point a song she really liked came on and she let herself go a little.

And then she let herself go a lot.

It was hot and she could feel herself sweating from the body heat surrounding her, and the pounding of the music was in her chest and her head, similar to the rush of adrenaline she felt on the battlefield, but pleasant. Her arms and legs flowed like silk in time with the rhythm. She could hear the other girls cheering her on and clapping and whistling for her.

"_Look at Mukuro go!_"

"_Whoo-hoo! Shake it, girl!_"

"_Hey, maybe we should talk to Kyouko's dad about making you a Super High School Level Dancer, huh?"_

"_Isn't that shrimpy girl in Class 77 the Super High School Level Dancer already?_"

"_Nah, she does traditional dances – Mukuro's shaking her groove thing!_"  
Mukuro smiled at the idea and laughed a little. She'd never thought of herself as anything other than a soldier before. Could she be something else, too? Well, yes – a lot of her classmates did a lot of things. Kuwata was learning to balance more intensive music studies with baseball. Ishimaru had gotten rather good at kendo. Asahina had been on something like six different sports teams before coming to Hope's Peak, but was also learning how to use watercolors in her spare time with Oogami. At some point Maizono took up archery, and Togami was an avid golfer (though she suspected that was because golf seemed was kind of a businessman thing to do). There was no reason she couldn't be a dancer too, right?

She'd felt so alive.

Mukuro caught Junko's eyes – she was furious with her.

That was the last time she'd danced. She was too afraid to practice anymore. Maizono kept asking her about it, and Celes tried to organize more nights out at the dance club, but Mukuro declined. She started declining more and more invitations. She could tell everyone was worried about her – Junko seemed pleased.

But all of that didn't change how she felt being around their friends and learning more about herself, until Junko reminded her how wrong that was. Her little sister hated their classmates. She was disgusted with their hopes and dreams and ambitions. Togami was anxious to take over his family's business group thing (Mukuro didn't quite get it, but understood it had a lot to do with businesses owning other businesses and having their hands in a lot of things – charities, lobbies, public works, hospitals, everything) and was doing research on things like green technology to invest in and better care for his employees. Ishimaru wanted to be Prime Minister and regularly did papers on things like fixing government corruption and exposing elected officials who took bribes – when he'd started at the school he didn't have the charisma for it, but he was learning from the others. Maizono regularly visited sick children in hospitals with the rest of her band, and sometimes Kuwata went as well – not all of the children liked idol bands, but a lot of the ones who didn't loved baseball. Fukawa donated a lot of the proceeds from her books to charity – each book went to a different cause and she'd raised millions of yen for everything from feeding the hungry to medical research to protecting the rainforest. Even Oowada's by comparison simple dream of being a carpenter? He wanted to own his own contracting business and, on the side, do things like build playgrounds for low income communities.

It made Junko _seethe_.

The one she hated the most was Makoto Naegi, and even now he was probably making her scream in frustration. Sure, she wanted the School Life of Mutual Killing to drag on as long as possible, meaning she really did need them to figure it out so most of them would live to see another murder, but he was keeping things in the courtroom under control. There wasn't as much yelling and screaming as she wanted – his deductions kept everyone in awe and focused on the task at hand, much more so than she'd wanted. Kuwata's begging for his life hadn't been enough. Ishimaru's tears for Oowada hadn't been enough. She wanted them to be at each other's throats, screeching accusations at each other over botched evidence. That hadn't happened.

It must have been driving her mad.

But even before they'd ended the world, Naegi's endless optimism and kindness had been something Junko _loathed_. Everyone liked him, and he seemed to like almost everyone in return. When the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident had happened, he was one of the ones trying to keep everyone from panicking while they waited for information about their loved ones. Even after he'd learned what happened to his parents and the fate of his little sister, he'd kept it together for everyone else. Despite being one of the smallest in their class, despite having the most unusual "talent" in a school full of prodigies and geniuses, he was their rock, their strength, their pillar.

It was when his title changed to Super High School Level Hope that Junko broke.

Even she had been hesitant about the whole School Life of Mutual Killing game – there were a lot of things she wouldn't be able to control, she'd need to devise no less than fourteen unique executions, there'd be the cleanup of the bodies after the fact . . . she had most of the groundwork in place, and she knew she was smart enough to do it, she just wasn't sure she wanted to.

But that moment, when Headmaster Kirigiri declared that Naegi was their living symbol of hope and something that had been dead in everyone's eyes suddenly came back to life, it pushed her over the edge and she told Mukuro that same evening it was time to put the ball in motion. And just like always, the soldier was too damn scared to go against her sister's wishes.

And what, exactly, did she have to show for it?

Nothing.

Mukuro was dead, after all.

And worst of all . . . alone.

And for the first time in her life, Mukuro felt like Junko had really hurt her. She'd done everything Junko had ever asked of her. She'd denied herself the things she liked, the things she loved. She'd helped her end the world. She'd helped her destroy their friends. She'd even given up her own identity for her sister.

No one knew who Mukuro Ikusaba was – she didn't exist to them. Maybe the dead students remembered, but she still couldn't face them. They had mourned the death of Junko Enoshima, not knowing that she was the one who was behind it all. It hit her that in many ways she was far worse than dead – she was forgotten.

Mukuro could almost hear Junko squealing in delight at the idea. "_Such perfect despair! They don't even remember you, Mukuro! I'm a little jealous! How awful for you! You're dead and no one will ever bat an eye or shed a tear for you, now will they?_" She could see her sister laughing, smiling, and it was then that she realized, at long last, she had Junko's approval.

For the first time she could remember, she cried. Mourning the life she could have had. Mourning the friends who had been so close but so far away. Mourning the lives that had been lost, and the ones who had yet to go. She'd _liked_ being a student at Hope's Peak Academy. She'd _liked_ spending time with her classmates. She'd _loved_ dancing.

The rest of Class 78 meant something to her. More than she'd realized before that moment.

But that was all gone now.

Mukuro slid to the floor, sobbing into her hand.

* * *

_5:55 am_

* * *

The clawing at the door to the gym had stopped about two hours earlier. The ghosts had remained quiet, too afraid to move for fear of what might happen if the wolf was simply waiting quietly for them outside. Mondo finally volunteered to check it out – he was the tallest and would be able to get the best view of the beast through the window in the door.

As he approached the door, he heard a hiss. "Mondo!" Sayaka hissed.

"What?"

"Your hair will go through the door," she said.

Mondo took a moment to think this over, realized she was right, and pushed it up and out of the way before looking through the glass. He studied the empty hallway for several minutes before poking the upper half of his form through the door to get a better look. He sighed with relief – no sign of the beast to be found. He stepped back and gave the others an all clear sign.

"What now?" asked Sayaka as they passed through the trophy room en route to the rest of the school. All of them were feeling a bit more cabin fever than usual, so they'd decided a walk might do them all a little good. Provided, of course, the wolf creature really _was_ gone. They'd stick to the dorms – there were lots of closed doors to choose from if they needed to make a quick escape while they tried to figure out what to do if they did run into the creature again.

"We keep going until we figure it out, I guess," said Leon. They quietly exchanged a few ideas while they passed through the halls until finally reaching the entrance to the student lodging. And as the ghosts walked into what Monokuma had dubbed Hotel Despair, none of them realized they had just missed Kiyotaka, still believing himself to be "Ishida", on his way to the physics prep room.

The next crime was about to begin, and the blood was going to flow like a river.

* * *

DING DANG DING DONG! Author's Announcements!

EDIT: Changed a few things in Mukuro's section when she's talking about the boys – her fascination with Naegi was played up but otherwise I think I wrote the basis for a terrible dating simulator XD. I also changed her opinion about Junko – my beta slammed the breaks on that one so Mukuro doesn't (currently) hate Junko – she's mostly conflicted and confused.

So not directly related to the story, but I do have Tumblr(s) for you guys to follow:

dixxymouri – this is my primary Tumblr. Lately it's been a lot of DR, but it's one of those " reblog things that strike my fancy or I feel need to be shared" kind of blogs. Follow if you wish

dixxyfics – My fanfiction blog. I'll post updates to this fic and other projects I'm working on, with the occasional reblog or other post as I see fit. This is also the blog that is probably more appropriate to leave me things like asks about the story or fanfiction or whatever ~_^

Song Choice: "La La La" by Naughty Boy, featuring Sam Smith. I didn't want to use a "current" song, per say, but this fit really well and, well, while it's not a "fun" song considering the context it's catchy.

Dixxy


	7. A Dark Congregation

Haunted

By Dixxy Mouri

Chapter Six: A Dark Congregation

DING DANG DING DONG! EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!

Hey guys, I know these usually wait until the end (and there will be notes on this chapter at the end), but before you guys get too excited I wanted to point out that _previous chapters have been edited, __**some of them with LOTS of additions**_**.** The biggest changes of note are in the **Prologue, Chapter 01, and Chapter 05**. The other chapters had a few touch ups but were relatively minor.

* * *

_6:00 am_

* * *

"Ishida" stared at his watch impatiently. Wasn't it time to get the fuck out of that place? Dumbasses – they shouldn't be fucking LATE of all things, especially if it meant getting away from that ugly-ass teddy bear. He scoffed. Motherfuckers. Lateness wasn't going to be tolerated, not that it was the kind of thing he usually cared about. But the longer those lazy asshats took to get here, the longer they'd be stuck with Evil Bear McKillington and he'd had enough of that scene.

Yeah, there were things he had to DO now that he had a body again.

"Ishida" finally saw one of the other students – Yamada, who'd apparently been hiding in the corner or something. What had he been doing back there, anyways? They had important things to attend to, damn it! "Tch! About fucking time!" he yelled. "Do you have _any_ idea how long I've had to wait here for you?" He pointed at his watch angrily, the fire in his eyes flaring. "Three minutes! _EVERYONE _is a whole _three minutes _late! Now go get the others so we can get the fuck out of this place!"

Yamada wasn't listening to him. He was too busy raising the hammer over his head.

* * *

_6:03 am_

* * *

It was the first moment of clarity Kiyotaka had had since Mondo's death – the sight of Yamada swinging for his head. The world froze as the other him, the other him that he'd convinced himself was his brother, began to fall apart. He was aware of everything – his heart beating, the clamminess of his palms, his short, rapid breaths. The fear of death had chased Ishida away, leaving just Kiyotaka Ishimaru behind.

It had been too easy to forget himself. Firstly, this hadn't been the first time he'd been kidnapped – the last time had been when he was little and he'd been snatched from a playground and held hostage for three days. He'd had nightmares about the incident for years, and was honestly shocked Monokuma didn't use _that _as his "dark secret" during his second motive. Perhaps their tormentor didn't know about it, or felt he wouldn't kill anyone to keep it buried.

When he'd awoken in this situation, he'd barely managed to keep a straight face for the other students as fear and panic set in, especially once he learned _why _they'd been kidnapped. At least when he was a child he knew he wouldn't be harmed as long as his parents paid the people holding him prisoner money. Here? That wasn't an option. His parents probably didn't know where he was, and even if they did, they had no money to give, not anymore, and even if they still did, he doubted Monokuma would want any.

The bear wanted blood.

And he'd gotten it. So far, five people had been killed; two of them murdered, one of them impaled for trying to fight back, and two of them executed for their crimes right before Kiyotaka's eyes. He was hurting. He was terrified, and exhausted from trying to hide that fear. And when the only real friend he had in this horrible place was taken away from him . . . he couldn't function. Somehow he'd been able to keep it together up until that trial, but watching the bike spin out of control and watching Monokuma . . . _eat_ . . . his best friend's liquefied remains had been his breaking point. Watching the bear slobber him down, the butter dripping down his mechanical chin as bits of pancakes fell out of his mouth as he shoved more and more in . . . he hadn't been able to sleep with those images in his head.

At some point he'd lost himself – the real him, Kiyotaka Ishimaru, had succumbed to despair and allowed that alternate him, that Ishida character, to take him and use his body for whatever he felt like. And he'd been too broken to fight back. He couldn't handle being a kidnap victim again. He couldn't handle watching anyone else die.

But Yamada had broken the spell – Ishida was gone, but something else was holding him together now and Kiyotaka felt like himself again. He realized that not only was the other boy going to kill him, but ultimately he was going to get himself killed at the end of the next Class Trial. Kiyotaka had two lives to save: his own life as well as Yamada's life.

Kiyotaka dodged the first swing. "Yamada-kun, what are you doing!?" he yelled.

"Killing you, you monster! Before you kill _me!"_

"I'm not going to kill you!" he shouted back, blocking his head with his arms. Yamada had raised the hammer again – Kiyotaka dodged a second time, but the mallet connected with his wrist and for a moment all he could see was white, stumbling to the ground in pain. _Get up, get up, get UP!_ He struggled to get up – he felt a shooting pain in his arm and realized his wrist was broken. _No, no, no,_

_CONCENTRATE! Move, move, MOVE! _He could hear his heart pounding in his ears and feel the throbbing in his wrist.

Everything felt so real . . . so alive . . .

Kiyotaka was slammed into the floor by a foot on his back – Yamada had pinned him. He struggled to move, but the other student put all his weight on that foot. His attacker was no athlete, but he was _heavy, _and Kiyotaka was helpless to get away. "Yamada-kun, don't do this! You'll get yourself killed, too! You saw what happened to Leon and Mondo! _Monokuma will kill you!_"

"NEVER! The hammer of JUSTICE is on my side! You're worse than Black Diamond Shogun Muku Muku Dynamo from Pretty Samurai Shoujo Rose Blossom, and he's won the Most Evil Villain of All Time poll three years running! YOU MONSTER! I WILL NEVER LET YOU HURT MY GIRL OR MASTER CELES LUDENBERG EVER AGAIN! ARGHH!"

That was puzzling, but not his most immediate concern. _Ludenberg-san? What in the world does Ludenberg-san have to do with this? _In one last ditch effort to save them, Kiyotaka lifted his head to turn to his would-be murderer. With tears in his eyes, he screamed what he hoped and prayed wouldn't be his last words. "YAMADA, STOP!"

Kiyotaka saw the hammer rapidly approaching his head. His eyes widened.

The pain in his wrist abruptly stopped, as did the pressure from Yamada's foot. _Did he . . . did he stop himself? _Kiyotaka clenched his eyes shut, sat up and looked at the other student. "Yamada-kun . . ." No response. "Yamada-kun, aren't you going to say something?! We need to work this out before . . ." Kiyotaka looked up at where Yamada was standing over him. He was breathing heavily, looking down at him with an unreadable expression, the hammer lying on the floor . . . covered in blood.

_Blood. . ._

Kiyotaka looked down and froze.

* * *

_6:15 am_

* * *

Yamada didn't stay much longer – he took the note he'd been holding and stuffed it in his pants, left the hammer lying next to his body, and exited the physics prep room. Kiyotaka wasn't sure what to do with himself – he was afraid to leave, he was afraid to stay. He backed himself into a corner, his eyes locked on the horror before him.

His own dead body, the blood still pooling around his head.

Yamada had actually done it. He'd killed him. One of his friends had just . . .

_. . . one of my friends? But we've only . . . wait . . ._

Kiyotaka paused. That . . . that was right. He'd already been a student at Hope's Peak Academy for two whole years. The first year had been wonderful – he'd had friends for the first time in his life, though the ones most important to him had been Mondo and Chihiro (which made the circumstances of her murder all the more sickening). Because, really, friends hadn't been something he'd been terribly good at making during his first several years of schooling.

At best, Kiyotaka eventually realized, he was someone that his classmates would use for help with homework, which he always obliged with an enthusiastic smile. Math, history, literature, biology, physics, chemistry, it didn't matter – he knew how to study all of them. He'd worked hard at it, and ensured all of his classmates they could do well, too, if they only applied themselves a little more. Hard work was the key to everything, after all.

But overtime he noticed that no one wanted to spend time with him if it didn't have anything to do with school. Everyone else seemed to be building little families with their fellow classmates, but not him. He tried to tell himself that friends would just distract him from his goal – he needed to become the Prime Minister, he _had to_, and that meant studying hard now. He would erase as much of his grandfather's mark from their family name as he could by leaving a bigger, brighter one in its place.

It still made him miserable.

Getting accepted to Hope's Peak Academy almost made it worse. He'd been thrilled about it at first, but where the other students used to just ignore him or seek him out for help with homework, now they looked at him with contempt. He heard them talking about him behind his back. Why had _he_ been chosen to attend the most prestigious high school in the country, maybe even the world, when he was just a kissass? Brown noser? Was _that_ his "Super High School Level" talent?

It was the first time he'd ever really gotten upset by the whole thing, and for the two weeks after classes stopped at his old high school and before he was set to begin at Hope's Peak, he holed himself up in his room, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. His mother made sure he ate and his father told him that things would be better once he was at the new school, but Kiyotaka wasn't so sure about that. What if he was just used again? What if these students talked about him behind his back, too?

Things had actually started out pretty poorly, with most of the students regarding him with looks of annoyance. There were two exceptions – Chihiro always ran from him like she was afraid, and Mondo regularly picked fights with him. Then that one gym class happened, and suddenly the two of them were not only his best friends, but they were his _first_ friends. They made small talk at first, but over time they really started to open up to each other – the incident that killed Mondo's beloved older brother, more stories about Chihiro dealing with her gender identity, and Kiyotaka had even shared the story of his first kidnapping.

Up until the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happened, it had been, bar none, the _worst_ thing that had ever happened to him. He supposed that, up until that day he'd been a normal child. He'd been playing with a ball that happened to bounce and roll to the edge of the playground, and when he'd chased after it he encountered the scruffy looking men who would be his jailers for the next three days. They grabbed him and shoved him into a car – he'd started crying immediately, only to be yelled at to stay quiet while the car sped away, tires squealing on the road. The basement he'd been kept in was dank and moldly to the point where he could taste it, and he'd spent most of his captivity in tears. He didn't understand what was going on or where his parents were and why they weren't coming to get him. The only "good" thing was that they really hadn't hurt him – they kept him fed, though not necessarily well, and made sure he had regular visits to the bathroom and plenty of water to drink. They'd provided a dusty old mattress for him to sleep on, which wasn't ideal but it was better than the floor.

On the third day one of the men harshly picked him up and brought him back to the car, where he was roughly shoved out about a block from his grandfather's house. He'd run there, but no one would let him see his grandfather or his parents until after he'd been taken to a hospital and looked over by a doctor. His mother had been furious when she was finally allowed to see him, holding him tightly while she yelled at all the other adults in the room – how _dare_ they keep her away from her child after everything they'd been through!?

_Mom . . . Dad . . ._

That was right. The World's Most Despair Inducing Incident had taken his parents from him. Hope's Peak Academy's _real_ headmaster, Jin Kirigiri, had sat him down in his office and told him what had happened. Someone had waited until most of the residents in his apartment building were home and blocked off all the exits. They proceeded to throw moltov cocktails through windows until the building was properly burning. It was one of several fires that day, and there was no one on hand to do anything for the people trapped inside.

Both of his parents had been home for the incident.

Earlier that year, when the world still made sense, Mondo had found out that Kiyotaka didn't have any hobbies, and convinced him to pick one. "_You gotta do more than just be a hall monitor or student council or whatever. You gotta be well-rounded or something, right Chihiro?_" (Chihiro hadn't been paying attention – she'd had her nose stuck in her 3DS, but she grunted a "_yeah, sure"_.) "_I mean, what's something that you've always wanted to try but never found the time to go after?_"

"_I . . . always thought kendo looked interesting-"_

_ "-perfect, we'll get you signed up for some kendo lessons._"

And . . . well, he enjoyed it quite a bit. Years of keeping himself in good physical condition made picking up on the technique a little easier, which he didn't quite like, but _mastery_ was still a challenge. Holding a practice sword correctly was one thing, but being able to actually win a match? Ah, that took the kind of hard work and dedication he craved. And even though he'd never been able to beat the best in their school (which wasn't a surprise considering she got into the school for being a swordsman in the first place) he found himself placing in journeyman level competitions towards the end of their first year at Hope's Peak.

When he went home during a school break, he'd been nervous about what his parents would think – it wasn't like any of the other things he'd done in school before, and he wondered if they'd be disappointed in him. But he'd kept his grades up as always and did everything else he'd been doing before, he'd just managed to find time for friends and kendo as well.

He'd nearly cried when his parents gave him a beautiful wooden bokken.

Kiyotaka looked to them for an explanation, not understanding. But they were smiling at him, telling him that they'd never seen him so happy before – he had friends, he'd found something he _enjoyed_ doing, and they hadn't seen that from him since he was little. They told him that, if they could find the time to get away from work, they wanted to meet his friends and see what his life at school was like . . . and that they'd never been more proud of him.

It was the last time he'd seen them.

That was why he'd clung to that bokken so closely after the headmaster told him about the fire. It was the last gift they'd given him (well . . . that and some new socks), his last happy memory of them. The afternoon he found out about what had happened was the only day he'd ever used it – before it had been to keep it safe from getting damaged, but now . . . he wasn't sure what to do. He felt guilty for not using it. He'd feel worse if it really did get wrecked. It wasn't until Mondo and Chihiro found him that he'd actually broken down, the larger of the two wordlessly carrying him back to his dorm as he sobbed into his shoulder, sneering at anyone who looked at the three of them strangely.

It was a wonder any of them got through that second year.

_ . . . this . . . this is a nightmare! Wake up, wake up, wake up!_

Kiyotaka clenched his eyes shut – why couldn't he just go back to that first year at the school, before the world ended? Of course, of course, he was going to wake up in his bed any moment – the sun would be out shortly, he'd be able to hear the early morning joggers outside, and he'd go get himself some green tea to calm down before the others joined him for breakfast and then everything would be fine – his parents wouldn't be dead, his classmates wouldn't be trying to kill each other (or him), and everything would be _normal_ again. Maizono and Kuwata would be hanging all over each other like they did, Enoshima would be touching up her makeup with a little compact mirror she always carried around, Chihiro would be her sweet self as always, Mondo would sense he was upset and say something stupid to try and make him laugh . . .

Kiyotaka looked at the body again . . . his body. He was lying motionless on the floor, blood pooling around his head and congealing in his hair. He tried to touch his head, but his hand passed through – he didn't even get any of the blood on his fingers. He looked at his hand and realized it was transparent – he could see the rest of the room through it, so he must have been a spirit or a ghost of some sort.

"I'm . . . I'm really dead, aren't I?"

It was . . . _real._

Kiyotaka wasn't sure why he'd bothered saying it out loud. There was no one else in the room to hear it alive or dead. He was all by himself here, and that thought made him horrified. Dying . . . being murdered . . . was bad enough. But did he have to be alone, too? All alone, never able to talk to his friends again or . . .

He paused. Then again, maybe he wasn't alone. He hadn't been the first to die – Maizono and Kuwata and Enoshima, and of course Chihiro and Mondo. They'd all died before him. For a moment, he had hope. Even if he was dead, even if Chihiro and Mondo were going to be upset to see he'd been killed, too, he might not have to be alone. Clinging to that thought, that one hope that he might not have to spent an eternity by himself, he got to his feet and headed for the physics lab.

He didn't want to be alone.

Kiyotaka looked at his watch, only to discover it was broken. _Probably from Yamada,_ he thought miserably. He took the watch off, wondering if he could fix it – he frowned, decided it didn't matter, and stuffed it into his pocket for the moment. Why bother wearing a broken watch? It wasn't a particularly meaningful watch anyways – something he'd picked up cheaply after his old one broke.

He took one last look at his body. It wasn't going to stop being unsettling.

Hugging himself and getting the distinct feeling that his new form was just as cold as his body was, he headed towards the door. He reached for the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge. "No, no, no!" Kiyotaka slammed his fist at the door, only to go tumbling forward _through_ the door and landing in a heap outside of the lab. Startled, it took him a moment to figure out what had happened.

Well, of course it made sense that he couldn't use the doorknob – he was a ghost or something. But didn't ghosts usually have the ability to use items in the real world to mess with the people they were haunting? Kiyotaka frowned – he didn't really want to scare the other students . . . except for maybe Yamada. He'd probably freak out getting a detention slip from beyond the grave. But even then he just didn't feel that vengeful against Yamada. Especially since Yamada was convinced he was going to kill him and that he'd done something to Celes . . .

Which . . . what exactly had he done to Celes? He didn't interact with her all that much outside of knocking on her door to get her up for their morning meetings every so often, and when he was taken over by that "Ishida" personality he mostly kept to himself and told everyone else to go away – it wasn't exactly _nice_ but hardly the kind of thing Yamada should have felt he needed to attack him over. So had Yamada just gone crazy from being trapped in the school for so long with Monokuma and the killing game and going through not one but _two_ murders in less than a week (and now a third just outside of two)?

Something still wasn't adding up. He looked at the door, which the bottom half of his body was still on the other side of. He scrambled back to his feet, wondering if he was going to need to do an investigation of his own, or if he'd be stuck waiting to see if Naegi and Kirigiri came up with something. He sighed (or at least something that sort of felt like sighing – as a ghost he wasn't exactly "breathing", per se) – they would be investigating his death soon enough.

The physics lab was deserted, which didn't surprise him. There hadn't been any actual classes in the school for . . . maybe about a year, now, so there weren't any active experiments or teachers preparing for classes or anything of the sort. Everything felt stagnant in there, and he couldn't hear anything but the quiet hum of the air purifier.

Kiyotaka swallowed – Monokuma had used it to tease him over Mondo's death. He'd been so broken up about the whole thing that he'd easily bought the lie that it was a time machine and he could use it to go back in time and stop Mondo from killing Chihiro. He frowned – even if something had happened to his memories, part of him had known just how much those two meant to him. In that moment maybe he was more concerned about Mondo, but part of his must have wanted Chihiro back, too.

Maybe that was why that Ishida presence was able to take him over so easily. His usual composure was non-existent in the wake of the second trial, leaving him the most vulnerable he'd been in years. Of course something like that could have happened – he was fragile, he hadn't been eating or sleeping properly, and he just felt . . . lost. Ishida was able to solve some of those problems – he'd been able to get some sleep the night before, or perhaps more accurately reached a point of such extreme exhaustion that he had no other choice but to pass out, and he'd eaten something for dinner, too. Hagekure had tried to join him, happy that he was at least eating, but that Ishida character had yelled at him to "fuck off".

_That's so strange . . . Mondo wouldn't do something like that . . ._

Come to think of it, a lot of that Ishida character's behavior was _nothing_ like what Mondo would do, and yet that was the pretense of what happened, right? Had it been a result of him being confused or his missing memories constructing a false idea of him? No, no that didn't seem right. He looked at his hands again and was soberly reminded that it probably didn't matter anymore. Ishida, whatever he was, was gone – he was dead and at the moment he was completely alone.

Kiyotaka headed towards the door to the hallway. There wasn't much else for him to do at this point here, and he wasn't sure he wanted to be around his body anymore. Besides, if the others _were_ haunting the school, he needed to find them. He just had to hope he could pass through this door as well. Maybe he could even go outside, although he wondered what was out there for him. Maybe his parents' ghosts if he could manage to find them?

The good news was that Kiyotaka was able to successfully pass through the physics lab door.

The bad news was that he walked into someone else, who wrestled him to the ground.

Kiyotaka clenched his eyes shut – his wrists were pinned and his assailant was straddling him. He opened one eye to see who it was, and was stunned at who he saw. He'd know that freckled face and short black hair anywhere . . . only he'd forgotten she had existed along with the rest of his memories of the last two years. "I, Ikusaba-san?!"

No one had realized it but, but one of their classmates had been missing this entire time. Enoshima-san had an older twin sister – the Super High School Level Soldier, Mukuro Ikusaba. She hadn't been around at all – everyone else from his class was there but her . . . and he'd forgotten she'd ever existed.

But, _how_ could he have forgotten _her_?

Something about her had always made him feel a little light headed and it was hard to pay attention in class if she was anywhere in his line of sight. He fumbled his words more often when he had to talk to her, and even though she followed school rules almost as well as he did he dreaded the very idea of giving her a detention slip. Mondo had been the one to point out he had a crush on her, which had flabbergasted him. He was supposed to focus on schoolwork, not girls!

Kiyotaka realized that wasn't exactly his choice one day. He'd been looking for a particular book in the library and hadn't been paying attention when he and Ikusaba went for it at the same time. Their hands touched, and the sensation of her skin against his made him feel dizzy, and even though he'd needed the book for a report he was working on, he'd let her take it. She'd thanked him, smiled politely, and walked away, and he found himself watching her walk away, too dumbfounded to do anything.

Mondo had been right – he was in _love_.

Of course, he wasn't stupid – he'd paid attention in health class, he understood sexual desire, he just did his best to not act on it right now. Yet, for some reason his base instincts had decided Ikusaba was his ideal mate and they fought against all of the logic and reason in his brain about why this was a bad idea, but nothing worked. He'd never been sexually frustrated before and he didn't like it. He was supposed to be a moral compass for the rest of the student body – he was the _president of the morals committee_. He wasn't supposed to be pining after a girl! He wasn't supposed to have dreams about long walks in the park or Ikusaba wearing a wedding dress or . . . _indecent behavior._

Mondo had teased him about it, but ultimately gave him what was he assumed was sound advice. If he managed to secure a girlfriend – Ikusaba or anyone else really – then they just needed to go at a pace they were both comfortable with, and if that comfortable pace included . . . _indecent behavior_ . . . they just needed to be smart about it and use protection. Kiyotaka reminded him he was the president of the morals committee, and Mondo reminded him in turn that one of his best friends was renowned for being the leader of a gang of rowdy bikers.

"_Falling in love doesn't affect your morals, dumbass – doing good deeds does."_

Not that Kiyotaka was planning on seducing Ikusaba into engaging in _indecent behavior_ right away, of course, but there was a school dance coming up, so maybe if he could just find the courage to do so he could ask her if maybe she might possibly consider going to the dance with him if she wanted ("_Kyoudai . . . don't use that line when you ask her out . . ._"). But after several days of trying . . . and failing . . . to keep his nerve, he got a brilliant idea.

Her twin sister went to this school as well – perhaps she would have some good advice for him?

Enoshima had stared at him almost angrily at first before laughing at him, saying that her sister wasn't interested in dating someone like him and in fact wasn't really interested in dating anyone at all, so he should just quit while he was ahead and go give someone a detention slip or something. He'd thanked her for her honesty and sulked off, disappointed that it looked like things wouldn't work out. At least he had his friends and a world of other things to keep him occupied in the meantime.

At least he did, until the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happened.

Ikusaba looked at him with wide, panic-stricken eyes. Kiyotaka realized they were in a somewhat, well, "compromising" position. "I, um, would you let me up, please?" he asked. Ikusaba continued to stare at him in horror and surprise. "Please?" he asked again. Normally he was so good at being assertive with the other students (he had to be as hall monitor) but sometimes he had trouble keeping it together around her, and considering he had died less than an hour ago, he was _not_ in a position to keep it together around her.

"You . . . remember my name?" she asked quietly.

"I . . . of course I do!" he said. He closed his eyes. "Though . . . I forgot for a while."

Ikusaba lowered her eyes. "You must hate me then."

"Why would I hate you?" Was it because she died and couldn't do anything to prevent the current situation? But, then again, _when_ did she die? She hadn't been with everyone else on that phony first day, so maybe she'd been killed elsewhere? She'd probably been the subject of Enoshima's "motivational" DVD or something . . .

Actually, that was strange. Why hadn't Enoshima been concerned about her twin sister? Shouldn't she had known that she was also a student at Hope's Peak, so why wasn't she asking around for her? The more Kiyotaka thought about it the more questions he had. Why would he hate Ikusaba-san? Why hadn't her sister said anything about her missing twin? Why was Ikusaba-san dead?

Ikusaba san clenched her eyes shut and looked away, and that's when he noticed it.

The outfit Ikusaba was wearing was not at all like her usual attire, school uniform or otherwise. But it was very much the kind of clothing that her sister favored, and in fact, looked exactly like the one Enoshima had been wearing when she'd been killed in the gymnasium. And then he remembered someone mentioning that Enoshima hadn't looked like her pictures from the magazines. And now that Ikusaba was here, dead, in those clothes . . .

"You're . . . you're the one who died in the gym that day," he said slowly.

Ikusaba still wasn't looking at him. "Yeah. That was me."

"But . . . why?" he asked. Why was Ikusaba dressed like and pretending to be her sister in the game? She turned to look at him in confusion, like she didn't understand what he was asking. Of course, considering everyone's memories had been tampered with, one idea popped into his head. "Why would you pretend to be Enoshima? Is, is that what happened to your memories? Were you convinced you were your sister?"

"You remember who I am . . . but you don't remember what happened, do you?"

Kiyotaka swallowed. He was positive he'd recovered about two years of memories, but he was just as positive there was still a fuzzy period he couldn't quite make out in detail. "I remember when we really became students here and the following year. Then I remember the World's Most Despair Inducing Incident happening, and everyone living inside of the school for about another year. But . . . I still feel like I'm missing memories." He shifted under her. "Also, Ikusaba-san . . . please get off me."

Ikusaba looked at him briefly before rolling off of him. He was able to confirm that she was, indeed, wearing something more like what he'd expect of her sister. Short skirt, knee-high boots with heels, classic Enoshima. But whereas Enoshima always looked cocky and confident whenever he'd handed her detention slips for violating the dress code, Ikusaba just looked uncomfortable, like she'd been forced to wear some sort of awkward animal costume like the ones in amusement parks. He supposed that the long flowing locks of pink hair had been a wig of some sort, and she'd probably used makeup to cover the tattoo on the back of her hand.

None of this answered the question of _why_ she was doing this, though. Was she apologizing for deceiving everyone and making them think she was her sister? That couldn't have been the only part of it. Then he remembered they were both dead, and he wondered . . . Ikusaba couldn't have had anything to do with what was going on in the school, could she? No, no, she couldn't . . . she couldn't possibly know . . . someone must have forced her to dress as her sister for . . . for . . .

"Ishimaru-san . . . I can't . . . I can't face the others. Please just, just go without me. The others who have died are all here, too – you can see Oowada-san and Fujisaki-san again. Just . . . please don't tell them you saw me. Please. I know that isn't in your nature . . . I know it isn't . . . but just this once . . . please don't let the others know. Please. They think Junko-chan just . . . didn't show up after she died and I need it to stay that way for now. I can't . . . I can't do it . . ."

Kiyotaka studied her and swallowed. "Ikusaba-san . . . you know something, don't you?"

"I . . . I'm so . . . I can't! I can't!" Ikusaba turned on her heels and bolted. Kiyotaka was stunned into silence for several moments. There was no question now that Ikusaba knew something about what was going on, but didn't want to talk about it. He took a few seconds to collect his thoughts and ran after her.

"Ikusaba-san, wait! Please! Tell me what's going on!" But by the time he'd rounded the corner leading to the art room, she had disappeared, and he was once again alone. Kiyotaka groaned – years of chasing after delinquents had made him one of the fastest students in their class but Ikusaba was a soldier with a lengthy resume of various mercenary work – if she didn't want to be found, she wasn't going to be found.

Realizing he wasn't going to find her anytime soon but recalling that she'd told him that the other dead students were also haunting the school, he decided to try and find them instead. That made him feel a little better, although he wondered how everyone was getting along considering what had happened. Ikusaba hadn't said anything about them getting along or not. Regardless of the extenuating circumstances, terrible things had happened to all of them – as it was he was going to need to figure out how he felt about Yamada sooner rather than later, possibly Celes as well, since it appeared she had something to do with his death as well.

Kiyotaka was beside himself as he dragged his form towards the stairs. This was really all he could do now – go find the others and figure out what to do from there. Did they try to pass on to the afterlife? Continue to haunt the school? He really had no idea. What _was_ someone supposed to _do_ in his situation?

The second floor hallway was empty. He looked around. "Chihiro? Kyoudai?" he called tentatively. No answer. Even though Mukuro was acting strangely, he had no reason to believe she was lying to him, so they must have been on the first floor or something. "Kuwata? Maizono?" He shook his head – Maizono and Kuwata would have probably responded to his calls for Mondo and Chihiro.

_Okay, rooms next._ He tried everything on the second floor, save the girl's changing room (in the event one of the remaining girls was in there and indisposed – dead or not, it wouldn't be proper for him to see them in a state of undress). Nothing, although for some reason someone had stored a large, person-sized robot in the pool supply closet. That was weird, but he had other things to worry about.

Upon reaching the stairwell leading to the first floor, Kiyotaka encountered . . . _something_.

Whatever it was, it was humanoid in shape . . . but only the basic shape of a human. Otherwise it was largely formless, with mitten-like hands and feet that resembled half melons. It had almost no face to speak of, save for a pair of mismatched eyes and a vacant smile against a red mouth. That alone was unsettling, but it wasn't the most unsettling part alone.

It was colored just like Monokuma.

Worse, it spotted him, and began to lumber towards him.

Kiyotaka was too scared to scream but not too stunned to bolt in the other direction. It gave chase as he scrambled back towards the third floor. Despite being dead, he still had good traction to work with and was able to keep a healthy pace ahead of that . . . _thing_, whatever it was. But it also occurred to him that running wasn't going to be enough; he was going to have to lose it.

_Okay, think, think, where can you go to lose this thing? _He was too panicked to think straight.

He reached the stairwell leading back to the third floor, but was greeted by a second creature just like the first one. Kiyotaka skidded to a stop and looked over his shoulder – the other one was still coming. He looked around him, trying to find an escape route, but there was none.

The creatures lunged at him, one aiming low and the other aiming high. He wanted to scream, but a rough, slimey hand slapped over his mouth while the creatures hoisted him off the ground – one had his ankles, while the other kept one arm around her torso and the other over his mouth. It was revolting – he was positive it SHOULD have smelled, but it felt like someone had mixed pond scum with a bucket of sand and then coated their hand with the mixture.

Kiyotaka struggled to break free, but they were unmoved by his attempts – he wasn't going to get out. He whimpered in the slimy hand, trying to pull it off his mouth so he could scream for help. Mukuro had been around recently, hadn't she? And maybe Mondo and the others were nearby. But then he wondered if it mattered, considering they were all dead anyways.

He felt himself start to cry again. He'd forgotten he was dead.

Then Kiyotaka got an idea – he couldn't get away, but maybe there was something he _could_ do.

* * *

_8:10 am_

* * *

The wolf creature was nowhere to be found – at least as far as Chihiro could tell.

That didn't mean they weren't all on edge anyways. Being dead was bad enough. Being hunted? Worse. Way, way worse. They'd been on edge since leaving the gymnasium – would it show up again? What if it actually caught one of them? Could they be hurt anymore than they already were? And what _was_ that thing anyways?

They'd been torn on what to do – did they look for it so they knew where it was, or did they hide someplace it would be unlikely to find them? For the moment they'd chosen the latter and hid themselves in the bathhouse. If nothing else it gave them a chance to check on Alter Ego – she was still hidden away in that locker.

"I don't know if Kirigiri was behind this," said Mondo, scratching his head after seeing for himself where the laptop was hidden. "Sure she's been kind of secretive and all, but this doesn't seem like her style, you know? Sure if she's on an investigation she can be secretive and dodgy with what she knows but I don't think we saw her poker face last night – I think she legitimately doesn't know where Alter Ego is."

Chihiro's eyes widened as a light bulb went off over her head. "What did you say?"

"I don't think she knows where the laptop is?"

"No, no, before that!"

". . . Kyouko's secretive if she's up to something?"

Chihrio sighed. "_After _that."

". . . that wasn't her poker face?"

Leon sighed. "Chihiro this is no time to be quoting Lady Gaga."

"No! That's it!" said Chihiro. "Poker face! That's it!"

"Eh?" asked Mondo.

Chihiro sighed in exasperation.

"Wait, I think I get what she's saying – _everyone_ looked like they didn't know where Alter Ego was hidden, and if Monokuma found her he'd have destroyed her or taken her someplace else," said Sayaka, tapping the side of her face. "No one looked guilty. No one looked like they were hiding anything. No fidgeting, no sweating, no nothing."

"And?" asked Leon. "What's your point?"

"With _one_ exception, whoever took Alter Ego _should_ have been exhibiting some level of guilt or something, but no one did, which means only _one_ person could have done it," said Chihiro. She put a hand on her hip. "The Super High School Level Gambler herself – Taeko Yasuhiro, also known as Celes Ludenberg."

"Yeah, but Celes already has a ton of winnings from her gambling," said Leon. "She doesn't need that pot . . ." His eyes widened as realization dawned on him and slowly began to dawn on Mondo as well. "That's it. That's the key. The money. It's a pot. It's the winnings the next killer gets if they get away with murder."

Mondo's jaw dropped. "Monokuma likes to refer to this as a 'game'. It's all a giant gamble. Stake your life for the chance to win big. And he just gave everyone a motive that would be impossible for a gambler of her caliber to resist – a giant pot and freedom, winner take all. All she'd need to do is take a life and get away with it." His eyes widened. "It's been a gamble the whole time – how Celes has held out this long is astonishing. The bear put up this motive to push her over the edge."

"But that doesn't explain why she'd-"

The ghost paused – someone was screaming.

". . . what the hell was that?" asked Mondo.

". . . oh no," Sayaka said, horrified.

None of them wanted to say it out load, but they all knew the most likely explanation.

Another murder.

"What . . . what now?" asked Mondo.

Sayaka composed herself and headed for the door. "Easy – we find the body."

"Uh, Sayaka, I don't think we can trigger the corpse discovery announcement," said Mondo.

"No, she means we should be there for whoever died . . . if that's even what happened," said Chihiro. She forced a smile. "Maybe it was just an accident in the kitchen . . . or, or maybe someone just startled someone really badly. I've screamed when people accidentally snuck up on me before." Mondo frowned, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Chihiro, you _know_ what that scream probably was."

"We know what it _probably_ was, not what it _definitely_ was!" said Chihiro. She had tears in her eyes. "It . . . it might be nothing! It doesn't . . . it doesn't have to be someone else dying on us! I don't want anyone else to be dead! I want to see everyone live! They're gonna grow up and get married and have jobs and kids and dogs and it's not . . . it's not . . ."

_Ding dang ding dong!_

"_Looks like we've got a corpse here! After a brief investigation, the Class Trial will begin!_"

* * *

DING DANG DING DONG! Author's Announcements!

The timestamp thing is probably going to end next chapter.

So . . . Junko's hair (and Mukuro's wig), just because I think it's going to get brought up , has always looked pink to me? Like I kind of get where people get blonde from (I've seen it called as such in official sources) but . . . guys, guys, that's _totally pink hair_. And I'm now curious to see if anyone is going to fight me on this in the comments not because I'm looking for one, but WAAAAYYYY back in the day I was TOTALLY having an argument with someone over the color of Glenn from _Chrono Cross' _hair in the reviews for their fic and it went on for EVER.

Okay, so there MIGHT be a short hiatus after this chapter. Reason? I've got a LOT of stuff going on right now and I don't know how much writing I'll be getting done. Good news is that Chapter 07 is started – I've got maybe, like, a third of it done? So you might see that one before the end of July but I wouldn't put money on it.

Song Choice: "A Dark Congregation" by the Hush Sound. I'm trying to avoid using the same artist in the same story, but this was a tough one and the was the first song in iTunes that really felt like it fit at all. It's like, there are some songs I have plans for later on or that I want to otherwise save, but yeah I struggled with this one.

Dixxy


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